Real World Adventures of a Plant Ecologist

Runnin' just as fast i can!

2010-03-11T12:06:00.004-05:00

I have considered myself a runner for about 6 years now. Running is definitely not for everyone but I loved it from the first time I laced up my shoes and toured the neighborhood. And by love it I mean I really really loved the whole feel of running. I loved the racing of my heart, the flushed euphoric feeling immediately post run, the actual runners' high (always after 2 miles) where I didn't even feel the effort of the run. Running has always made me feel like I am Buffy Summers - Slayer of the Vampires! I know, sounds a little dorky but its true. I've always admired kickass female characters and Buffy is the epitome - if I could be a kickass chick, that's who I would be. Running makes me feel strong, like I can take on the world! Running makes me feel free, powerful, strong, pretty much able to kick some ass myself! And running always came so easy for me when I first started. Granted I have never been fast (10 min mile) but my personal pace is just a little slow - biking, hiking, kayaking - my personal speed is moderate and ain't nothin' wrong with that!

Like I said, running was easy until the summer after I finished my PhD, in 2008 when I came back from a run (that I forced my visiting sister Meg to go on with me) and I could barely walk. Out of nowhere - pain! Went to my lovely and much missed podiatrist (I moved) only to discover I had developed the scourge of all runner foot problems -plantar fasciitis. If you have never had it, count yourself lucky - if you have, I feel your pain! It sidelined me from running. The only cure is rest, so rest I did. Pretty much all summer long and after I moved to a new place and started a new job. All the stress of something new and unknown without my stress relief outlet of running - that was tough! Whenever I visit a new place, I run - helps me get the feel for a place, find my way away around. Driving and biking are too fast, walking is too slow - I like the exploration run. Not this time though. I have to sit, frustrated for almost a year and a half waiting for my feet to finally feel better. I start biking and spinning which is great but just not the same. I always felt like an impostor, buying the bike gear when all I really needed was a pair of shoes and a good running route.

And then my husband decided he wanted to try running and of course he was great at it - it came easy. Before I knew it, we were in a new place with new people and suddenly he was the runner, competing in races and I was feeling like the outcast - the lazy plump girl on the sidelines. You can't just go around explaining to people that you used to run but now your feet hurt, you've put on a little extra weight 'cause you can't run anymore - you just sound like a fake whiner who's making excuses for their current position in life. I didn't think it would hit me that hard - stopping running. My stress outlet, my space to work through all the crap in my brain, my escape was gone and I got lazy. I didn't enjoy anything else enough to stick with it and my fitness dropped - more than it's ever dropped before. My identity as a runner was gone and it was a little hard to deal with. But I had to rest my feet. I pushed it a few times, tried running too early or too far and the feet would start hurting again. As they say though, time heals all wounds.

I suddenly realized, in Fall 2009 (a year and a half without running), my feet didn't hurt any more. I couldn't believe it - was it true that I could try running again? So I did - just slowly at first - 2 miles. And it was soooo hard! It was never hard like that in the beginning but being older and heavier and more out of shape - the run was a slog. But I tried the next day and the next and suddenly I was up to 3 and 4 miles fairly comfortably. Still a struggle mind you - still taking walking breaks and running so frickin' slow (12 min mile!!!! ridiculous!) - I didn't even know it was possible to go that slow.

Last weekend I ran my first real race in a long long time (over Thanksgiving I did a turkey trot 5k in upstate New York which was ok - my lovely sister Amy stuck with me the whole time). This race I just did was a respectable 10k over in Hyannis, MA. The first race I ever did 6 years ago was a 10k - I was about 13 minutes slower this time which actually made me quite happy. I did the race, I survived it, and I got a decent time for very slow me. Can't say I really enjoyed it, can't say I found the exhilirating high of the race, but I was proud of myself for doing it, finishing it and feeling strong about it. I'm really fighting to bring back my running identity, my strength identity, my tough girl identity.

Since I started running, I have always wanted to run a half marathon - I just never got to that goal before my feet got hurt. I was always waiting until I was stronger, faster, etc. I've decided (and this is kinda my New Year's Resolution) that I'm not waiting anymore - for anything I want to try. There's no sense waiting to live until tomorrow or next month or whenever. I'm doing it now. Soooo - I have just started training for a half marathon. The race is 12 weeks from now on Memorial Day weekend - May 30th. It's in Hyannis, actually it's very similar to the course I just ran for the 10k. I am training for this race, building strength and trying to get faster but I'm going into this knowing that I won't be fast and I'll probably walk a little bit. But as long as my feet don't give out on me I will be trying this race and hopefully, somewhere along the way, I will find my joy in running again!

Who says Nantucket's grey in the winter?

2010-03-07T09:08:00.006-05:00

After day after day of rain - Sierra is ready to get out! Dog are only allowed on Great Point during the winter otherwise they chase and eat the endangered shorebirds, yum tasty plovers...

Great Point Faro - about as 'remote' as you can get on Nantucket!

Sure looks warm doesn't it?

Now Doggie's happy!

And Noah's cold - see it may look warm out with the sun and the blue sea and the whole beach atmosphere but it's not. You forget, on Nantucket there's the gusty freezing wind and cold cold water - not a bikini and swim trunk day!

A winter adventure on Nantucket just chases the apathy and boredom away!

Christmas Treats

2009-12-17T18:08:00.005-05:00

I've had a fairly crafty, creative fall so far and thought I'd share a few recipes and photos of the fun!

The non-profit I work for owns and operates a Cranberry Bog here on Nantucket...which means I was flush with with cranberries all season. Cranberry this and that - whatever could be made with a cranberry, was! But here's the best thing...

Courtesy of Cooking Light magazine: Nantucket Cranberry Liqueur!

Recipe:
2 Cups Sugar
1 Cup Water
12 ounces of fresh cranberries
3 Cups Vodka (the cheap stuff works well!)

1) Cook sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat for 5 minutes or until sugar dissolves - stir constantly. Remove from heat and cool.
2) Chop cranberries finely in a food processor (about 2 minutes). Combine sugar mixture and cranberries in a large bowl. Stir in Vodka.
3) Pour mixture into clean jars (I just used clean canning jars and twisted the lids on tightly) Let stand for 3 weeks in a cool dark place, shaking every other day
4) Strain the cranberry mixture through cheesecloth and bottle!

This will last for a year. And man, isn't it pretty!!!!

So...to continue the sinful theme... Truffles!!! And so so easy to make!

I made a couple kinds - plain chocolate, plain chocolate dipped in white chocolate (which did not work so well! White chocolate does not melt well!!!)

And the best one - raspberry flavored dipped in dark chocolate - should have made more of these!!!

Here's the simple recipe (anyone can do this! I'm surprised I never tried before!)

Recipe
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened.
3 cups confectioners sugar
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips, melted
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1) In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Beat in confectioners sugar until smooth. Stir in melted chocolate and vanilla. Place in the fridge for about an hour.

2) Remove and shape into truffle balls. This is the step to start dipping although, make sure the truffles are warmed up to room temp first! Roll in your melted dipping chocolate (you can melt chips or blocks or bars - whatever) and place on parchment paper to dry.

3) To make flavored truffles, replace the vanilla with a different extract, like raspberry.

Enjoy!!! What's the Christmas season without a little indulgence - hey this is what I run for!!!!

Wild Weather

2009-07-02T14:14:00.006-04:00

Nantucket has been having the rainiest, dreariest, coolest spring/summer I've seen in awhile, and I lived in the UP! On the plus side, my garden looks fantastic - as green as I've ever seen one of my gardens:

A week ago, I missed a wonderful Nor'easter storm (I was off island) that corresponded with one of the highest tide cycles of the year. 6 boats sunk in the harbor (some not so accidentally?) As a result, Nantucketers are on the lookout for strange and wild weather patterns.

Yesterday definitely qualified as wild and wooly weather. At the end of the day, everyone was talking about the sausage cloud that rolled over head around noon:

This first picture is outside my work

This second one was taken out at one of our field sites by Kelly Omand.

According to wikipedia this roll form of the arcus cloud is fairly rare. Regardless it caused quite a stir and nothing much happened from it!

People relaxed, went about their work and then around 4:30pm everything went dark and the Nothing (remember your "Neverending Story"?) come in bringing heavy rains and fantastic cloud movement.

These clouds were literally boiling. And one poor dog was so keyed up she even wanted to going out in the rain!

Springing Alive

2009-04-05T19:09:00.003-04:00

Spring may have happened in the calendar year a few weeks ago but today it really felt like spring! The weekend forecast was rainy/windy/overcast yet this morning (Sunday) we got up to bright sunshine and warm warm weather. Noah and I were already determined to take a walk today out at Squam Swamp/Farm - a property that NCF manages out on the east end of the island and the sunny warm weather made our trip all the much better!

Squam swamp is just lovely, low areas full of Nyssa sylvatica (Black gum) and uplands (for Nantucket) with lovely large and spreading beach trees. Dotted through out the walking trails maintained on this property are both ephemeral and permanent wetlands adding all sorts of visual, botanical and topographical variation, which on a mostly flat, forest-less island, is a necessity for the soul!

Check out the lovely large holly tree - these things are everywhere on the island! Green all winter long! We were of course hoping to see some spring ephemerals on our walk but we were too optimistic. Now is the time to mention though, that even though the walk was lovely, we had ulterior motives for heading out to Squam - ulterior movies in the form of tiny bleating baby sheep! Eeek - that's right, baby sheep. Anyone that knows me well knows how obsessed I am with sheep - the most adorable thing in the world. Now I'm lucky enough to work for an organization that actually owns a herd of sheep and breeds them. And, as everyone knows, spring is lambing season and man are our sheep lambing! 11 little lambs so far and 9 more ewes to give birth! I though I'd please all my readers with some pictures of lovely little baby lambs - the ones outside running around are a few days old but the ones in the sheds were only born last night. We even had a set of triplet lamps - that ewe is thinking she was insane!

I'm a slacker

2009-03-05T11:39:00.003-05:00

It's official and I admit it - I'm a complete slacker when it comes to writing this blog! It's been over a month - that's just not right. And if I don't write something now - before I go away for two weeks on vacation, my mother will hurt me :)

I know what my problem is with writing this blog - it's that I spend too darn much time in front of a computer. We're well into the winter months and if you're an ecologist like me you know what winter means - hours spent in front of a computer. In contrast the summer season means hours spent outside in the field. It usually has a nice symmetry - by the time winter roles around I need a break from constant field work and by the time summer roles around it's time to get outside: this really prevents boredom because a life spent in front of a computer is not the life for me! So now I'm getting to the point where the computer is driving me crazy and the thought of going home and sitting down in front of the computer to write a simple and witty blog for you all to read is enough to make me run for the hills, if Nantucket had any hills.

It's also time for my recharge, my yearly vacation to break up the monotony of winter weather. Noah and I are winging our way down to our favorite little Mexican Island next week (Cozumel) for almost 2 weeks of relaxation bliss - no cell phones, no computers, no internet, no TV and plenty of sand, beach, sun, exploration, and margaritas - my idea of paradise! I promise to post many many pictures to make you all jealous when I get back.

Until then, here are some delightful Nantucket pictures. I particularly love the seal. He popped out of the water while Noah and I and our visiting friend Linda were taking a sunset beach walk and he proceeded to wave goodbye to us - seals are one of the dearest pleasures of Nantucket life!

When the Light is Right ... Treasure is found!

2009-02-01T20:43:00.007-05:00

One of my favorite things so far about Nantucket in the winter time is the light here. If you're a photographer and see everything framed in light and texture - this is the place for you. We may not have much elevation or large variations in texture but the contrast of moor and blue sky and lower horizon light lends itself to some amazing pictures! Here is a sample of some of my favorite from the past few weeks concluding with the excavation of a treasure found out at Eel Point - the northwestern most portion of the island!

When the tide is high, freezes, and then recedes, this lovely pattern of shattered ice suspended in grass appears!

Full-speed dog racing through a rare snowy day.

The wind is always blowing on the Tucket - kicking up loosely packed snow.

And now - the adventure of the horseshoe crab. Noah and I have been scouting out extraordinary horseshoe crabs and have accumulated findings of very small and, we thought fairly large crab shells. Until we found this monster frozen in the snow and proceeded to very very carefully extract it without breaking it!

Noah intent on excavation

A crab encased in snow.

And it's extracted in all its beauty!

Savage Nature

2009-01-05T21:17:00.009-05:00

This past weekend Nantucket was coated in ice and snow. Now, living in the UP we would have said that this past weekends storm of just a few inches of snow with gusting wind was nothing - no big deal what so ever! But here, out in the Atlantic where it hardly snows - this was a big deal! And it stayed cold, with the thin layer of snow sticking around (I've been informed that this is unusual). So this weekend when the sun came out and the snow was sparkly, we decided it was time for an adventure!

Sierra led off the adventure, romping like a giddy baby puppy in the cool weather (she's still a snow dog at heart!)

So we load up in the tank and head off to Windswept cranberry bog to see what we can see and let the dog enjoy her romp. THe bogs stay flooded a bit over winter and we were greeted with lovely ice-encased little wetlands.

Occasionally a few of these abandoned, leftover cranberries were found, lovely red against the frozen earth.

And then - the dram began. Sierra took off as she does - running after some scent or sound, crashing recklessly through the underbrush. We call and call and get fed up and then up she runs, happy as can be - but what in the world?

A bloody doggie!!! Of course, we instantly thought she'd killed a deer 'cause that was a lot of blood! But no, we realize that every time she shakes her head - out comes a droplet of blood. Poor doggie had about a centimeter tear right through the tip of her ear and she'd bled all over her head - that's right - all that blood was hers!

Don't worry - she didn't appear to be in any pain or to care about the wound. It was the only spot she was hurt - what caused this? At first I wondered if she'd ran out on the ice and fallen through but no evidence! And then we saw it - the likely culprit. Doggie has not yet gotten used to the thick underbrush of the 'Tucket where Smilax's thick thorns are always waiting - she most likely got a thorn through her ear and pulled through it instead of pulling it out!

Once we realized she was fine - the real question was how to get her home with out getting blood all over the tank!

Poor Sierra! Isn't she just pitiful! Don't worry - she's fine now, just not quite as pretty. And I'm fairly certain she's learned nothing from this 'adventure' and will be charging right through the next patch of Smilax she sees as long as there's some interesting smell or sound on the other side!

Ringing in the New Year

2009-01-04T10:06:00.002-05:00

Welcome to 2009! I know a lot of people are say - thank goodness 2008 is over but not me - I had a great year and I'm hoping that 2009 and will be just as fantastic.

So it's a New Year and the time for the traditional wiping clean of the slate and making of non-lasting resolutions. I've certainly participated in this craziness myself many times and it always ends the same way - "what resolution?", "Did I fail again?". Really, who needs all the negativity and disappointment! So this year I have a different plan. I'm starting the new year off by acknowledging what I did accomplish in 2008 regardless of whether is was a resolution or not. And then I've decided on some workable goals, foci, things about which I can feel accomplished next year.

The things I'm proud of this year:

1) Obviously - the fact that I finished the dissertation! Officially Dr. Jen!
2) Learning alternate exercise routines when I stopped being able to run - I didn't give up, I just changed my methods!
3) Starting a new and challenging job - doing EXACTLY what I want, not what my advisor/academia thought I should be doing.
4) Moving cross country - by myself (Noah came around much later!)

Of course there are things I"m not proud of but why dwell!

Things I'm planning of being proud of next year!

1) Fitness related - I'm already working towards these - a) doing 2 full, unassisted pull ups and b) doing 10 big boy pushups.
2) Fixing my plantar fasciitis so I can start running again and train for a 1/2 marathon (it's been a goal for a long time!)
3) Giving back - through money and volunteer work

Hmmm - I'm sure there will be more things that come up - who knows what the year will bring! But I"m ready and excited for it. Here's to fresh starts.

Christmas is coming and boats are getting canceled...

2008-12-20T08:01:00.007-05:00

I always thought that the Upper Peninsula was in the middle of nowhere, that travel was difficult and iffy and unpredictable, that you had to be prepared to stay in your house and not be able to get anywhere for any number of reasons. It was...but Nantucket, in the winter, is worse! There is just no predicting what might happen. The Steamship Authority (which is one of two ferry boat companies servicing the island but the only with a car ferry) has a lovely place on their website listing cancelations and the number of cars waiting to get on each half hour. High winds come up, the boat does cross the sound, heavy storm, big snow, driving rain - often you look outside, think the weather is perfect but the boat doesn't run because the weather is bad in Hyannis - our sister port in America. It just adds this element of surprise to travel out here! Makes is hard on a weekend like this one when EVERYONE Is trying to get off the island and travel for Christmas and New England is getting it by big winter storm after big winter storm. We're not heading off until MOnday so keep your fingers crossed! Course you may be asking why you would take your car off the island to travel when its more expensive and you can fly. Two things to think about - 1) it ends up being cheaper and less of a hassle to drive all the way the Michigan from the island of Nantucket in the Atlantic ocean then take a ferry or plane to Hyannis, take a bus to Boston, catch a plane to Detroit, get to parents house! 2) if boats aren't crossing the Atlantic due to wind and weather - do you really want to be up in the air in a tiny 10 seater plane?

The Christmas season on Nantucket has been fantastic so far - a perfect picturesque New England Christmas. A few weekends ago was Christmas Stroll - this event heralds the end of the tourist season on Nantucket but also the beginning of the Christmas Season! During Christmas Stroll Main Street is closed down to car traffic, stores are open with sales, people in Victorian clothes are caroling on the streets, horse drawn carriages are carrying Santa around and hundreds of Christmas trees line the streets.

Noah and I headed down to check out the festivities - after Noah had finished his first road race! A 5 miler - he did fantastic! He's only taken up running recently - ironically coinciding with when I was forced to stop running - had to fight down the running jealousy as he crossed the finished line!

Here he is putting in the last burst of steam to cross the finish line!

Off to Christmas Stroll just in time to watch Santa and Mrs. Claus arrive to Nantucket Harbor at the Straight Wharf on the Coast Guard ship - that's right, in Nantucket Santa comes over sea not by air!

After that, Santa and Mrs. Claus get in a horse drawn carriage and are lead up Main Street by the Town Crier - a lofty and important position - then Santa gets to meet with kids and Noah and I went to find the famous mulled cider to warm us up. Delicious if priced for tourists! The chowda tent was much more reasonable and we left full and happy and chock-a-block full of the Christmas season. Now - if only I could finish my Christmas shopping, everything would be dandy!

To top off the Christmas feeling, we had our first New England snow last night - about 3 inches or so were left this morning and it will melt soon but that doesn't stop the plows from going like crazy. I swear that last night the plow went past 7 times in 3 hours - I don't know what Nantucketers would do in a really storm!!!! They must just be so excited to get out and take care of snow that they over do it. Now this morning I'm hearing plows clearing out parking lots when there is no need - its obviously going to melt soon - its the nice and slushy snow that isn't gonna freeze or stick around! Oh well, at least its pretty and its not staying!

Our arctic snow dog was extremely excited for the snow though! I don't have the heart to tell her its going away!

Selfless Giving on a Local Level

2008-11-25T13:02:00.003-05:00

It's that time of year again - the craziness of family/food/gift-based holidays. Don't get me wrong - I love an excuse to get together with good friends and family and cook fantastic new dishes. And anyone that knows me knows that I LOVE Christmas - I love everything about it - the decorations, the cookies, the parties, the music, buying gifts for each other. Growing up, no matter how hard things might have been, we always had a great Christmas always got one or two things we really wanted under the tree, always got to spend long hours with family at Grandma's house - that was Christmas for me.

In my teens I really started moving away from the whole idea of Christmas is about getting gifts to really just loving to give gifts! Nothing is more fun for me then picking out the right gift for each person on my list - course over the years I've developed a reputation as giving great gifts - makes it hard to live up to each year.

Okay - I'm veering a bit of topic here - my point is that time of giving and getting is upon us and everywhere we turn there's talk of the economy taking, people without jobs, stores not having money. Here in Nantucket its a topic of great concern as I hear from people (who have been here a lot longer than me!) that the jobs are disappearing, the construction has slowed down, the scalloping season isn't going well, the restaurants are closing down - this is a tough time of year to think about giving.

I hear all this news and I just feel so so luck 'cause for the first time in my adult life, my husband and I are living with excess money, we're stable 'cause I was very lucky in my job (worked for the degree very very hard but happened to be in the right place at the right time for this job). So where so many people have a short fall, I feel like we're comfortable enough to think about excess - so what's my responsibility in this situation?

I've been starting to think about ways of giving back - not just frou-frou gifts that people don't need but how to help those that really need help and there are lots of ways to do that on Nantucket! At first I thought about doing donations to national organizations and think this is a great thing to do but so often that money gets caught up in red tape and complicated methods of distribution and I wanted to find a way to help now - I know what I was doing was going to help out someone in need. So I decided to think local - where money and time I give locally goes directly to help those in my community 'cause really, these are the people I see everyday, MY community!

The big one is the Nantucket Food Pantry - it's located in the basement of St. Paul's Parish at 20 Fair Street (508-228-7438). They take food donations but also love to get monetary donations or gift cards from Stop and Shop. This is going to be my choice for giving back to the community - it's easy to think of sparing $10 a week to help someone get food and what is more easy then just purchasing a $10 gift card each week when I do my grocery shopping. Look around, I bet there's a food pantry in your neighborhood that would welcome any little donation.

Another seasonal donation opportunity here is the INKY Santa toy drive to get toys to needy kids at Christmas. From the INKY:

"Drop-off locations for new, unwrapped toys are available at The Inquirer and Mirror, Stop & Shop, Grand Union, Island Variety, Faregrounds Restaurant, Atheneum, Our Island Home, Madaket Marine, Nantucket Bank, the Sparks Avenue Branch of Pacific National Bank, and the Nantucket New School.
Monetary donations can be mailed to Inky Santa’s Toy Drive, Inc., P.O. Box 2595, Nantucket, MA 02584, or dropped off at the Nantucket Fire Department on Pleasant Street or The Inquirer and Mirror at the Milestone Rotary.
In addition to donating toys or money, volunteers are welcome to wrap toys Saturday, Dec. 13 from 9 to 11 a.m. at the fire station."

And many further ideas are available here for Nantucket
http://nantucket.plumtv.com/stories/giving_back_nantucket

So if you are able - take a look around this season and find someway to give back, as little or as large as possible. After all, I may have extra to give this year but someday I may not and I hope people will be generous when I might need help!

Okay - that's my preachy blog for the year - enjoy your Thanksgiving!!!

I Wanna Be Consequence Free....

2008-11-06T18:38:00.007-05:00

I finally got the spend the last weekend over in America visiting my sister Amy in Boston and going to a concert of one of the best bands ever :) At least that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it! We went to see Great Big Sea - a canadian/folk/rock band from New Foundland! They give a fantastic live show - the music is so upbeat, you leave exhausted from dancing and jubilant from the energy of the music! Take it from me - if you ever get a chance, go see them live!

Amy and I spent the weekend exploring all the history of Boston - we walked the Freedom Trail until we got bored - its basically a walk through downtown Boston highlighting all the historic buildings and places of importance. Like Paul Revere's grave:
Yes - that guy is dressed up - it is Boston after all.

The best costumes we saw weren't on the people though - Amy and I stumbled upon a little dog costume party in Boston Commons!

He's the King!

It's a "hot dog"!

And last but not least - Little Bo Peep who found her sheep - or at least as close as she could get!

A Red and Sandy Weekend (Finally)

2008-10-19T09:33:00.008-04:00

What a crazy strange and fun week it's been! Starting with a three day weekend of Cranberry Festivals and beach driving to participating in my first prescribed burn to entertaining new friends in our teeny apartment ending with a chowder (chowda) tasting contest and going from warm and sunny to overcast and super windy - fall on Nantucket is almost as change-able as a UP fall!

First off, last weekend was Columbus Day weekend - a lovely three day weekend. Noah and I started off on Friday with a nice long bike riding, heading off into fantastic, practically pure sand. We biked out to Altar Rock - the second highest spot on the island ( so around 108 ft above sea level!) It was a good ride though - felt nice to get off the beaten path again!

Saturday was the Nantucket Conservation Foundations Annual Cranberry Festival! We own an extremely large cranberry bog - there were pictures in a previous post - and every year is this festival for the public to come and watch the harvest, buy cranberries and cranberry products, and meet our sheep. I worked the honey booth - we were selling honey made by the bees that pollinated our cranberry plants - that stuff flew off the shelves like hot cakes! Then Noah and dog came out and I took a tour of the flooded bog - just gorgeous fall colors!

The day after cranberry festival - we took our fancy new car and headed out to Great Point. Great Point is the farthest northeast point on the island located along a narrow strip of sand - this part of the island was its own island for many weeks after the NoName Storm (what every else thinks of as the "Perfect Storm"). So we drove the tank out to just before the sand road, took the tire pressure down to 15 psi, made sure we had a shovel and a board and out we went driving on the sand, all the way out to the tip and the lovely old lighthouse!

Yum - Nantucket life is going swimmingly so far! I'll post some fire pictures soon!

The "new" vehicle!

2008-10-07T19:14:00.004-04:00

So Noah and I have been talking about how we will need a 4X4 vehicle so we can get out to some parts of this island you can only access via sand-driving! There are some really neat parts of this island with no houses and excellent surf casting and great isolated beaches. There was no way we were gonna live out here without being able to get to these cool places - beach driving - it's crazy!!

Then, a week before Noah came out here my friend Jess and I spotted this fantastic, beautiful shiny blue Toyota Land Cruiser parked across the street from my apartment with a "For Sale" sign on it - perfect! To top it off, the car had Michigan license plates and it just it such a cool looking car! Luckily Noah agreed it was cool - we took a test drive and now it belongs to us! We are the proud owners of a 1986 Toyota Land Cruiser, completely redone, with a brand new stereo system complete with iPod jack (we're convinced that the stereo system is worth more than the car. But just look at this thing - have you ever seen a cooler car that will drive on sand? It certainly looks better to us than any modern Escalade or Jeep or other SUV-thingy - it's definitely an old style beach car :)

So anyone who comes to visit us - we'll take you on a tour out to Great Point - it'll be worth it! (You know you're jealous!)

A Visitation

2008-10-02T19:52:00.005-04:00

So my fantastic friend Jess came out to visit me on Nantucket a little over a week ago - she came all the way from that crazy state of Ohio! Man, the midwest is just so far away from this little island out in the Atlantic :)

Anyways - her visit was a fantastic chance to go hike in some places I haven't seen yet and to try out lots and lots of new restaurants around Town. Our favorite by far was the Brotherhood of Thieves, whose downstairs feels just like a dark and dank English pub complete with fireplaces. And the food was fairly good also. The atmosphere suited Jess and I to a T :)

High on Jess's list was to visit our cranberry bogs - NCF, the non-profit I work for, owns and manages 2 cranberry bogs on Nantucket - Windswept Cranberry Bog (an organically managed bog) and Milestone Cranberry Bog. We went in to see Milestone and check on how the cranberries were doing.

They weren't quite ready then but I do have to report that it is now time for cranberry harvesting season! Keep an eye out - next weekend NCF hosts a cranberry harvest festival - I will be supplying more cranberry and sheep pictures post that event!

On the way home from Milestone Bog we had to stop and take a picture of the Serengeti, one of our lovely grasslands in the Middle Moors - it really does look a bit like an African plain and so someone decided that these lions would feel right at home hanging out here!

I had a great 5 days with Jess and was sad to see her leave the island but hey - I guess you can't vacation all the time!!! :) I'll just have to make her come back when it's really summer again and we can sit on the beach for long periods of time!

I'm still here!!

2008-09-19T06:32:00.002-04:00

I'm sorry for the long time between posts - not my fault!!!! The server that provides the wireless internet connection at my apt has been down for two weeks and I just haven't felt like staying at work after work to play on the internet - so sorry, if you suffered!

Nantucket is still Nantucket - the fall season is definitely moving in now with nice cloudy and windy fall days. I had to battle the wind on my bike ride home yesterday from work. There really aren't hills to speak of in Nantucket - certainly not compared to Houghton! But even the little downhills that I enjoy speeding through, I had to fight against - I understand that this is life on the island - lots o' wind particularly as fall and then winter approach. And then to top it all off, I got a flat bike tire (I mean instantly and extremely flat tire) and had to walk the rest of the way home. That was okay but annoying 'cause I have a friend visiting who was using the car and now I have to leave her vehicle-less for the day! Off to the bike shop after work today!

Now, here's something kinda cool. The washer and dryer for my apt finally got installed last week. But it's something new and exciting - it's a washer/dryer - wait for it - combination! One unit both washes and dries - there is no need to take the clothes out and put them in a different unit. It is one of the craziest things I've seen lately - who knew that they made something like this?! It still baffles me a little bit - I mean, there's no lint trap for the dryer! It's just insane BUT it washes my clothes and it works for me!

Weekend Adventures

2008-09-06T15:36:00.005-04:00

Well - it's a Saturday afternoon and I'm settling in for the approach of Hurricane Hanna. All week this has been hyped as big news with people going around bringing boats off the water and bringing in patio furniture and the predictions of wind speeds just keep dropping - I'm not holding my breath but if it gets crazy I'm running down to Surfside beach for some wave and wind pictures - I'll keep you all posted!

On other news - I now have things. My apartment now actually has furniture - I didn't think I minded sleeping on a blow up mattress for 4 weeks until I got to sleep in a real bed again!

Noah came out last week - taking the slow Steamship ferry across from Hyannis and I ran down to the dock to get pictures of him coming on the boat.

Here you can see the Steamship as it comes around Brant Point - that's the Brant Point lighthouse there - it's such a little cute lighthouse!

As I'm taking pictures the back of the ferry opens up and you can see some of the cars inside. A little boy next to me exclaims "there's a U-Haul on the boat!" And sure enough there's Noah in his orange rain jacket and the back of our ginormous UHaul truck!

He arrived safely and we got everything off loaded - I won't show you apartment pics yet 'cause it's still too crazy messy with boxes and piles of stuff everywhere - it's hard to move from a house with a basement and garage into an apartment! But we're working on it!

I took Noah out to Surfside Beach which is an easy bike ride from our apartment and swam in the waves - he was suitably impressed. And then we kayaked through some good waves, out to Coskata-Cotaue on the outside of Nantucket Harbor.

And we found some fantastic beach artifacts! All together a fantastic weekend and Noah has decided that yes, Nantucket might be a place he could live for awhile!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

2008-08-29T06:24:00.004-04:00

I'm just a wee bit excited that my husband is finally coming to Nantucket today! He's been driving a UHAUL with all of our stuff across the country - stayed with Amy in Boston last night and he's on his way down towards the Cape ready to get on a 2 house ferry boat and make is way to me! There is much excitement in the Karberg household today 'cause you know, I've been without all my stuff for awhile now ;) Here's a delightful picture from Isle Royale to cheer you up on this fabulous Friday.

Sheep ho!

2008-08-28T12:57:00.004-04:00

Wow - my time in Nantucket has been flying by! So in my new job I am replacing someone who is having her second child. Basically we've arranged it so that she and I overlap and work and it has just been weeks of brain dump - passing of the informational torch. Along that lines I've spent a lot of fantastically gorgeous days inside, in front of a computer - not the best situation - until yesterday afternoon!

So NCF believes in sheep as a management tool! So we have a herd of a sheep! And a shepardess! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Yesterday I got to help move sheep - we're grazing them through different pastures AND I got to cuddle the new baby sheep while giving them vaccinations and shooting ear tags into their ears. All around, a delightful experience - maybe I'll have to figure out a way to devote more time to sheep and less to computers!

Taylor Sisters Take Over the Commonwealth

2008-08-24T19:52:00.005-04:00

So, not only have I recently moved to Nantucket, MA - but my sister Amy has moved to Boston, MA. We have both suddenly gone from Midwest girls to the land of the New Englanders. Fortunately, Nantucket and Boston are in easy travel distance from each other - basically a 2 hr bus and a 1hr or 2hr ferry ride. So Amy decided that she needed a beach weekend before fall set in (can you blame her?) And she came down to visit me! Much much fun was had on both sides.

The weekend started out very inauspiciously with me getting locked out my apartment 1 hour before Amy was due to show up on the ferry. Do you know what it's like to get locked out of your apartment with no cell phone, no car keys, no nothing in a brand new place where you know no one?! Horrible!!! In this age of cell phones I have no numbers memorized any more - I know my husband who was over 1,500 miles away and my parents home phone number - that's it!! Nothing! Luckily for me, there was a very kindly locksmith willing to come out to my apartment after 9pm - he was wonderful and to make a very stressful story short - he got me into my apartment and I got to go pick Amy up from downtown Nantucket - after that, things just got better.

We spent all of Saturday and Sunday at the beach - what fantastic waves! And sun, and sand - Just great! We went to Cisco beach today - it's on the Atlantic side (as opposed to Nantucket Sound - I know - I"m smack in the middle of the Atlantic!)

The waves were at least 8-10ft and there were guys out on surf boards! We decided to brave the waves and spent a lot of time (an energy) coasting around, getting swamped and thoroughly enjoying ourselves!

And to make the trip even better we discovered this place in Town where you can get dinner and then see a movie - it's the only movie theatre on the island and it's small - smaller even than UP theatres!!! But the seating was comfortable. We saw Momma Mia - FANTASTIC. We were laughing our asses off - definitely the loudest people in the theatre although everyone else was enjoying themselves. There was a family in front of us with some very old women - in their 90s I'd guess and in one scene you are very suddenly shown a guy's butt cheeks - the old women were laughing uproariously and that cracked Amy and I up even more! The best part of the movie - seeing Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan singing and looking like hippies/headbangers - much much joy!

It'll be my turn to visit Amy next - in October for the Great Big Sea concert!

One Week as a Nantucketer

2008-08-18T19:39:00.009-04:00

Well - it's official - I've survived one whole week on this island - my new home! I've worked hard for a week, figuring out this complicated job I've jumped into, getting to know all the people I'm working with, and figuring out where things are! Nantucket may be small but quite a few of the roads make no sense - I've done some spectacular but unexpected off-road biking this week. That's right biking - I am now officially a bike commuter to EVERYWHERE. This weekend was the first time I drove in a week and that is only 'cause I have no way to pull my kayak with my bike (yet!)

I was greeted with a delightful surprise on my first day of work - this picture is my new desk - note the lovely flowers right next to the computer. My husband is the "best husband EVER" :)

So at the end of my first week of work, it was definitely time for some exploration of my new home! First up - I finally found Polpis Harbor for some serious kayaking which turned into salt marsh exploration.

The tide was out and the peat was exposed - I was dragged in against my will 'cause I"m such a wetland nerd!!!
But just look at this - this "soil" is really just undecomposed plant material that accumulates in inundated (continuously or repeatedly wet) wetlands! The birds just loved this area.

I biked into Town to watch all of the wooden sailboats head out to the Nantucket Sound (area between Nantucket and America :) for the Opera House Cup sailboat race - beautiful boats, so so many of them with decked out racing crews!

My last fun for the weekend was - wait for it - the 30th annual Nantucket Demo Derby!!!! I was so relieved to see some nice, semi-rednecky, local flavor - made me feel at home! And check out the car with the sharkfin - much fun was had here by me! I followed the Derby with a nice long off-road bike ride back home, it was a good-funfilled weekend! Now it's back to my "Daily Grind!"

I'm back and far far away!

2008-08-15T06:34:00.005-04:00

Sorry it's been so long! I was out on Isle Royale National Park for two weeks - the land of no cell phone receptions or computers or TVS (Fan-fracking-tastic!) A picture post will be coming soon!

Then I was driving cross country,

stopping to see family,

and taking a ferry across the Atlantic Ocean to reach my new home and new job in Nantucket, Mass.

And now I"m here! Keep checking back for my adventures out here - my life as a New England girl!!

Hungarian Falls Hike in Pictoral

2008-07-17T19:45:00.007-04:00

When Megan was here we took the dog on a long hike up to Hungarian Falls - the falls aren't really impressive this time of year but the views are and at least it was sunny and warm while we were hiking! It's one of my favorite hiking spots close to town.

The best part of the trip was watching the dog viciously attack sticks in the pond at the base of the little falls. I have no idea what they did to upset her but she definitely HAD to kill them :)

That's all - hope everyone is well. I will be incommunicado for two whole weeks - hubby and I are heading out to Isle Royale National Park for a much needed kayaking adventure - pictures and stories to come when we return!

Staging - warning Picture Intensive Blog

2008-07-15T21:22:00.023-04:00

Selling a house is a complicated procedure!! We had our official signing meeting with our realtor this afternoon to put our house on the market - that wasn't the complicated part. It took FOREVER to stage every room - basically to set the rooms up in a neat, nice, sparsely decorated way that will hopefully appeal to potential buyers. When Meg was up, she was a tremendous help in packing up extra stuff and staging rooms. Staging, by the way, is the official term for setting up rooms for view when trying to sell your house (learning a whole new vocabulary here!)

Well - the house is finally set - it has never looked this good!!! So if you ever wondered what my decorating style is like - here it is (in a much neater-than-actual fashion!) We've worked on EVER room in the house, stripping wood work of paint, redoing wood floors, patching plaster walls and painting.

First the bedroom - a nice blue with stripped wood work:

The spare bedroom/TV room - we sold most of the furniture that belongs in this room and the pink carpet was totally there when we bought the house!

Our beautiful bathroom that we designed - we used to have to sit down to shower until we raised the room and made this bathroom and our study - bonus!

Noah's stairwell - he stripped paint and wallpaper from ALL of this woodwork!

Our lovely downstairs rooms - I LOVE these rooms! We really experimented with color in this house!

And last, but not least, our newly completed kitchen - I'm in love with my kitchen and will be able to enjoy it in it's completed form for exactly 1 week - sad but true!

Sisters and Strawberries

2008-07-14T23:19:00.004-04:00

Wow - it's been awhile since I've posted a comment. One of my sisters, Megan, was up visiting me for a week in the wilds of the UP and we were crazy busy with all sorts of fun things!

First off, it is high strawberry season in the Yoop right now. This place as the ABSOLUTELY best tasting strawberries that I have EVER tasted - they are just fantasticly rich and juicy. And the joy of living up here is U-pick strawberry sessions. On wednesday morning, bright and early (6:15am) Meg and I got up, went to fetch Linda and pick many many strawberries. Meg has never picked before and it was awesome. We netted about 8 pints each for around $16.00 - a steal for organic strawberries! There were people there with whole families paying around $100 for strawberries. So we get home and have all these strawberries!!!

What to do? Why make strawberry daquiris of course and strawberry shortcake and the best strawberry/almond/chocolate chip muffins EVER :) By the time Saturday and the Chassel Straweberry Festival came around we were almost strawberried out. We made a valiant effort though and went to watch the doggies in the Strawberry parade.

So aside from strawberries - we visited a few beaches, ate Monk muffins, went hiking at Hungarian Falls with the doggie and packed the house! Meg went to an authentic Yooper bonfire party complete with burned sweaters and old house tours! We did a bar crawl and got ogled by old men - some of the many joys of living in a place with fewer women :)

We tried desperately to rent Newsies - remember the old Disney classic with Christian Bale and Bill Pulman, sing, dancing, and pelvic thrusts! We saw some of it on You Tube - to which we were able to sing along to every word! Then we rented it and it didn't work!!! The horror - you can't just watch it by yourself - you have to have someone to share it with.

Now Megan is gone and I only have 3 days until we leave for Isle Royale - when I come back, I'm off to start the new job - life is moving crazy fast now but it is exciting!

4th of July and Garage Sale Busy-ness!

2008-07-07T18:07:00.004-04:00

Man - what a crazy, busy, fun weekend!

Started out with much fun on the 4th of July on Friday. Noah and I met up with our friend Linda and biked out to the annual Keweenaw Land Trust Horse-Tail Scramble. Basically - the afternoon started off with a 10k run/5k walk winding through the beautiful Churning Rapids ski trails. Due to the fact that it was already like 85 degrees and 1pm when the race started - we all opted for the walk! Post-walk, fantastic buffet of food - think table of inventive organic hippy food and you'll get the gist :) The buffet and after-party were hosted at a house adjacent to the Churning Rapids trails - this place is fantastic - completely energy efficient - they are able to sell energy back to the grid! Massive gardens, swimming pond and games. Noah excelled at the pie eating contest, coming in 2nd place!

And Linda and I got into the last round of the water balloon throwing contest!

After biking back and spending over 6 hours in the hot hot sun - we collapsed for a nap and completely missed fireworks! That was okay because early the next morning....

The garage sale!!!

So we posted the start time for 9am - people up here are crazy for a garage sale, they were driving by at 7am!!! Finally, there were so may people at 8:30am that we had to let them in. It was so busy that I didn't even remember to take pictures until the afternoon when more than half the stuff was sold already! And we did sell most of the stuff we put out - we were trying to pare things down for moving and we got rid of almost a third of our belongings and made a good bundle of cash! I was impressed. Linda and George stopped by halfway through - now George's family runs estate sales and he said we were doing a fantastic job - Noah found his calling I think - he kept chatting up the old Yooper men and offering to make bargains and getting things sold! Altogether a crazy, exhausting day!

And now - my sister Megan is coming up to visit for a week - most exciting!!! Craziness will abound!

Oh Canada

2008-07-01T23:46:00.003-04:00

Happy Canada Day one and all! For celebration I listened to some of my favorite band - Great Big Sea, a fantastic celtic rock band from the "tropical island of NewFoundland" :). If you haven't heard of them - definitely check them out - they force a smile to your face and a jig to your step no matter how you're feeling!

Other than celebration of our fantastic country to the north (or, actually, some of it is to the south from where I am right now in the good old Upper Peninsula), Noah and I met with more realtors today. That's right, we're beginning the arduous and slightly scary task of actually trying to sell our house. Here's keeping figures crossed that the house actually sells for a good price and isn't on the market too long! It's an adorable house and we've done so much work to it - someone must want it!!!!

We're spending the next two weeks finishing the kitchen remodel and then putting it on the market! Here's keeping fingers crossed - Oh! and we have to clear out a bunch of stuff so there's gonna be a massive garage sale this Saturday for those of you in there - come check it out!

K - off to get my beauty sleep, much work in the morning!

Smiles...

In the beginning

2008-06-30T02:13:00.002-04:00

Here goes - I'm off on a new chapter of my life, a new and exciting chapter. I've been so many different places and made so many wonderful friends - what better way to keep in touch than to force people to read my rambling thoughts written late at night and clutter up the internet with more blogginess - besides, everyone else has a blog :)

As many of you know or do not know - I recently finished my PhD - yay me!!!! Phew - is it a relief to be finished with school finally. Someone recently pointed out to me that, since high school finished, I have spent 10 years in school - man does that make you feel old!

Luck for me, I have found a job in the real world that I think is going to be perfect for me. Most people with a science PhD go straight from grad school to the post-doc and then to the tenure-track professorship. I have to confess to a strong lack of interest in entering academia. The whole, publish-or-perish, give up all of your life until you get tenure mentality just did not appeal to me. Besides, I have this wish to not just conduct my research in a disconnected ivory tower but to actually use it in the field - and that is the exact description of my new job! I'm going to be the Research Supervisor for the Nantucket Conservation Foundation . That's right - I'm moving to Nantucket, MA - never really thought that would happen! I get to live on an island in the Atlantic ocean - isolated from the mainland by 30 miles, surrounded by water and beach with very little snow (if you don't know, this point is extremely important to me!!!). It's going to be an exciting and new adventure - as all life should be. So stay tuned and I'll try and keep things updated with the fun that will be my life!