28: Gonna. be. GREAT.

I was born 28 years ago yesterday. I spent most of the day on Grand Isle, monitoring vegetation with NRCS. (In other words, took a long walk down a beach on the Gulf of Mexico looking at trees and sometimes dune grasses.)


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NRCS and the local conservation district planted about 100 Sand Live Oaks along the island about a year ago. Quercus geminata was native, but has mostly disappeared from Louisiana. With some acorns from Mississippi, a plant expert grew a whole bunch of them. Over 90 of the trees have survived the first year.



I learned a new tree (8): rattlebox, called such for the dried up seed pods that dangle from the branches well after the leaves have left for the year--



Here are 27 things I did when I was 27, in no particular order:

1. Completed/ survived my first semester as an adjunct professor.
2. Completed/ survived my first full year without a nerve block since 2000.
3. Moved to Arizona for the winter.
   
4. Pet a baby burro.
   
5. Visited at least nine national parks.
6. Earned a free national parks pass for racking up over 250 volunteer hours with the federal government.
7. Dealt with my breakup with Peace Corps.
8. Discovered a deep and abiding love for soil.
   
   (here I was discovering a wolf spider with my shovel, and exploring the free soil pit bestowed upon me when my favorite tree in the woods at Johnsonburg fell)
9. Met Josh Ritter and Austin Nevins.
   
10. Said goodbye to Uncle Fred.
11. Said hello again to my cat, Red (short for Red Oak, the state tree of NJ).
    
12. Returned to a job that I loved, to support people that I love.
    
13. Ran my fifth Muddy Buddy.
    
14. Signed up to move to New Orleans.
15. Discovered an allergy to anxiety.
16. Traveled to five new states (UT, WV, KY, AL, LA).
17. Tried satsumas for the first time.
18. Rode on an airboat for the first time.
19. Helped plant about 850 trees and 5000 plugs of grass.
20. Didn't get my dream job.
21. Went on a mission trip to Rhode Island, serving as the musician.
22. Went to quite a few major and minor league baseball games for the first time in many years.
23. Acquired a new basil plant, which has traveled from VA to NJ to NY to LA successfully, and is still growing.
    
24. Learned that NJ has a volcanic cone.
25. Had my nails painted for the first time since I was in middle school.
    
26. Celebrated the marriages of Jon and Janet, Matt and Robyn, and Lauren and Andy; was asked to be a bridesmaid for Hilary and Patrick and Amanda and Mike.
27. Promised to marry an awesome human being.
    

I laughed! I cried! I saw new places and learned new things!

Turning 28 also marks a solid decade of vegetarianism.

I know very little about what 28 will bring aside from lots of things having to do with Louisiana's wetlands and getting married, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. In the wise words of my favorite Katie Brendler Katie Katie Brendler, "GONNA. BE. GREAT."

Ewe Thina

Ewe Thina. The audio is of the 2013-2014 YAVs singing at orientation! I love this song.

The third verse made me think of this picture I took in Malawi in 2010, so I laid it over the whole song.

The Sabi Star tree, also called Impala Lily, grows in eastern and southern Africa. It flowers in the winter, the coolest and driest part of the year. It blooms under the harshest conditions.




I've never especially liked the color pink, but this has been the background on my computer since I came home from Malawi. It's a good reminder to always try to bloom under adversity.

I thought it was an appropriate match to not only the song, but the group singing it.

success!

I don't write nearly often enough about my adventures as a NRCS Earth Team Volunteer. It's been a phenomenal experience, and I love love love it. It's pretty awesome that my position as a YAV allows me to keep volunteering with them, as part of my work but also in my free time when I can find it.

Today's adventure was especially poignant. The landscape we were investigating had such a great story to tell.


We (two NRCS employees, a Fish and Wildlife employee, and me) took an airboat out into Bayou Sauvage to monitor some vegetation, aka check on a few grass plantings that happened about three months ago. These are not plantings I did, but it's exciting to know that this is what some of my plantings might accomplish. But first, we look backwards--


Bayou Sauvage used to be a lot of cypress swamp. That cypress swamp in particular was heavily harvested to build New Orleans... two or more centuries ago. The stumps are still all over the place. Many have sunken, but the ground was a lot more solid at this particular stop, and there were stumps and knees sticking up everywhere. Even in an airboat, it was tough to get through here.


After many years of logging and then lots of other human activities (development of levees and canals that change hydrologic patterns, among other shady business... humans are the worst), this area became open water. Tons of erosion happened, and expanded out from there to create a lot of other islands and open water areas where there once was good healthy swampland.

Something humans have done to try to fix this problem is use recycled Christmas trees to help catch sediments, reduce erosion and rebuild marshes. It took some trial and error-- there were a few busted up old cribs nearby from a less successful iteration of the project, but now trees are bundled together and airlifted by helicopter. And it's working! The circles show piles of dead Christmas trees that were laid down in the water here. The arrow points to an area that you can't even see the old trees, because the grasses have taken over successfully after enough sediment built up to sustain the ecosystem.


And finally, back to the present. These grasses were planted about three months ago. Grasses are one of the first steps to protecting an area from erosion and building it back up, first into health marshes, which can later progress into healthy swamps*. Here, people planted bullrushes in particular, but I've been planting cord grass and there's this other horrific sounding thing called cut grass that sometimes gets used (called such because it has sharp edges and will cut you). They've taken like little champs, anchoring soil, helping catch more soil and expand the area, creating more habitat for migratory birds and a healthier ecosystem now and to come. It's so exciting to see the progress in such a short time, and to know that I have done this to places. There are places in southern Louisiana that will probably hopefully be just as successful in the coming months and years. That is really, really exciting to know.


Watch out world. I'm coming to conservation you. Just as soon as my hands get warm. It was surprisingly chilly for south Louisiana. Everyone was complaining but I was having a blast wearing a hoodie AND a windbreaker!


*Fun fact! The difference between marshes and swamps: marsh implies grassy wetlands, swamp implies forested wetlands.

faith and hope and satsumas

Today's sermon at Bayou Blue was basically, "Have hope, but get up off your you know what and do something."

I'm pretty good at getting off my butt most of the time. I've planted dozens of trees and hundreds of plugs of cord grass, sat in on countless meetings for countless organizations (which ok, involved sitting on my butt, but I had to get up to get there), hiked all over southern Louisiana to learn about this place, and in my spare time, do absurd things like the Color Run (even though my housemates and I walked the whole thing).

Last week was definitely a big exception. Aside from the literal difficulties of getting off my ass these days, there was also the great frustration of e v e r y  s i n g l e  p l a n  I'd made for work for the week falling through. All of them. Every day. On Thursday I went to Houma and Thibodaux to visit museums. On Friday I visited the branch of Jean Lafitte National Park in the French Quarter. I read a lot. I still fell short on hours (thank goodness I'd built up a good supply of surplus over the past few months, because I basically shot it all last week).

And what about life in general? There's the more figurative get off my butt and do something... like get a job. It's not that I haven't tried-- I've applied to literally over 175 positions in my field since graduating from college more than five years ago, most of which had multiple openings/locations. That doesn't include the countless jobs I applied to that don't involve my beloved geography degrees. That's so much rejection. The worst of it came a few weeks ago when I didn't get my ideal job at home in NJ. Even 300 volunteer hours, a personal recommendation, and a home field advantage can't help me.

Frustrating. But: have hope. Thankfully, I am doing something I enjoy right now, at least, when my plans don't all evaporate and I actually have things to do. And ultimately, this long string of not getting any jobs I've applied for except Target during the holiday season (ugh) lead me to said something I enjoy. Also thankfully: I never received the official rejection note, rather, a very kind and encouraging email from the wonderful soils mentor who let me dig all of those holes in the past year and got me correcting all of you when you call it "dirt". And, I suppose, I should be thankful that I didn't have to face any difficult decisions or hard goodbyes prematurely.

After church this morning, this sweet Cajun man was talking about shooting a possum that was destroying his satsuma tree (for those of you outside of southern Louisiana, satsumas are these wonderful clementine-like oranges, slightly more tart perhaps). I mentioned that my housemates and I love satsumas. So he drove home right then, and returned ten minutes later with a big bag FULL of them, fresh and ripe and sweet and wonderful. I may or may not have had about a half dozen of them today, and there are still several dozen left.

It's the little things that keep me motivated and remind me to remain hopeful. I'm still getting good experience in my field here, and I'm getting delicious citrus on top of it (you know, and the general support of a great community). I have no idea what's next for Mike and me, where we will be or what we will be doing, but I'm in a pretty safe position in the meantime. So I'll keep hoping, and I'll keep getting off my butt as best and as much as I can.

House.

My mom left this morning after a wonderful, whirlwind three day visit. We wandered around the French Quarter, took a trip out to New Orleans East to see Bayou Sauvage, tried on wedding dresses, ate lots of southern Louisiana food (including vegetarian jambalaya (!!!) for me and a lot of different seafood for her), and volunteered at Program of Hope.

We also thoroughly enjoyed the music and legacy of Professor Longhair. (!!!!!) I discovered his music in college-- better late than never. A friend put "Big Chief" on a mix for my birthday one year, and I have walked this earth nearly every day since with that piano riff stuck in my head.



Mom discovered his music on Thursday night when I took her to Fess Fest at Tipitina's, featuring Hugh Laurie and Joe Jackson and many other very, very talented individuals (including a group of high school students with some serious chops). Better later than neverer!


"There are at least 100 people in this room and 10,000 in this city who can do this better than me. Well, *!@# 'em. I got here first." -Hugh Laurie

Seriously, amazing concert. Every musician, every song was just awesome. It's a little disorienting at first to hear Hugh Laurie speak with his native English accent rather than his very well faked-for-TV New Jersey one, but he is a fantastic host and a talented musician. It was very clear to the room that for him, playing Fess's music at Tipitina's was a boyhood dream realized. I love seeing musicians who are just elated to be playing.

Something else cool about the concert: proceeds went to the Tipitina's Foundation, which supports the preservation of Louisiana's incredible music culture. They run a lot of education programs for youth, but they're also partnered with Project Homecoming, where three of my housemates work, to restore the house that Fess lived in, where his daughter and grandson were living until Katrina wrecked it. By this spring, they'll be back in the house, with some renovated space to live in, some renovated space to rent out and some renovated space to serve as a Fess museum. I'm really excited about that this will all be completed while I'm still in New Orleans to see it.

In the meantime, Mom and I decided to go see it as it is now, especially because my housemate Anna Leigh is one of the people working on the house, and could stop and give us a tour. It's coming along great, and they were able to save and refurbish some of the original pieces, including a few windows and the brickwork of the fireplaces. Touring everyone else's job placements the first day I was in New Orleans, I saw a big mantle and his front door sitting in storage over at the Project Homecoming headquarters, waiting to be fixed up and put back where they belong. Kind of cool.





It's exciting to see things being rebuilt. It's also really exciting to take part in it in some small way (so selfless, buying that ticket to hear Hugh Laurie play Professor Longhair's song. What a sacrifice.). (I'm hoping to go in with Anna Leigh sometime soon and lend a hand on one of my days off, too.) It's very cool to see the full circle of things.

This isn't from Tipitina's this week, but it'll do:

Zimpel Manor

Before the eight of us were all in New Orleans together, Alex, Kalyn, Jess, Alyssa, Hannah, Anna Leigh, Sydney and I got all sorts of ridiculous comments about being prime fodder for reality TV. Scratch that, we've lived together for two and a half months and we still get snarky questions and comments constantly-- "Are you all on the same cycle yet?" "Where are the video cameras?" "That must be awful!" etc. etc.

It hasn't been without challenges. Dirty dishes (and clean dishes that need putting away), laundry room traffic, trying to balance work with ridiculous You Tube videos when hanging out in the living room, miscellaneous tiffs over miscellaneous things... we are eight human beings with infinite quirks living in one house, after all.

It hasn't been awful though, honestly. We're slowly moving from strangers somewhat peacefully coexisting into an actual community. We'll still have our disagreements and frustrations as that develops, but overall, I think we're defying everyone's expectations of being an over-dramatic nuthouse.

Last night was a rare weekend evening that we were all home. Actually, it was my first Saturday night home after a month of weekend travels for conferences and retreats. Earlier in the evening, a few of us were sitting around as I begrudgingly scheduled an appointment to go wedding dress shopping with my mom while she visits later this week (the shopping is begrudging, visiting with my mom will be great!). Alyssa and Kalyn kindly offered to help me find the perfect dress, which really turned into a hunt for the worst dress ever:


We liked the see-through bodice and choker. (source)



More see-through corset action, with side train! (source)


The veil appears to have more fabric than the entire dress. This one was appropriately found on a website called UglyDress.com! (source)

The silliness continued to later in the evening. Because I had to wake up early to get to Bayou Blue, I attempted to say goodnight early. The whole house was hanging out in the living room, laughing about... everything.



I had actually gone out to say goodnight in effort to get them to quiet down a little, but I joined in the fun instead. Cuddle attacks and continued joking about awful wedding gowns and bachelorette party plans (at which point I threatened to secretly move out and hide down the bayou for the rest of the year) kept the laughter going.




I ended up forcing myself to go to bed, because despite the extra hour of sleep from the end of daylight saving, I knew I'd be exhausted today if I didn't. But I didn't mind the continued laughter. It was just fun in a quiet sort of way (as in calm and unassuming, most definitely not as in volume) to all be together and laugh about nothing in particular. No matter what reality show drama type expectations people have when they hear about our household, I drifted off to sleep with my ear plugs in, smiling about the strange but happy little community we're creating here in New Orleans.