the beginning of many beautiful summer days

After about a week of bumming around and constantly moving boxes from place to place to place, I am finally somewhat settled in the apartment I will be living in over the summer. I do not yet have a bed, but I will be acquiring one tonight. Let me just say, I absolutely loooove having my own place, even if it is only temporary.

It feels so.. good to come back after work everyday and call this place my home, even though it is only for the summer. I feel like I am now finally a college student. I often feel like I am being too pampered in college while living in the residence halls. To me, it seem like there is no sense of independence. Yes, I know that living in the residence halls is supposed to make the transition easier in college and create a sense of community, however, I do not think that it fosters much independence. While living there, someone feeds me, someone cleans my bathroom, someone cleans the hallways and the floors, someone dusts and cleans the windows, and someone takes out the trash. People are doing all these things for me, but I am not doing them for myself, something I really want in my college experience. I want to cook, I want to clean, and I want to be able to say that I can take care of myself and be more independent. I think that it is an important part of simply growing up. True, people on this campus get to experience this during their junior and senior years, but sometimes I wish it were more flexible than that. So, that is why I am so glad and so excited to live in a place that I can call my own.

Since finals have ended and the summer has begun, I have started my job working under a professor in the field of grassland ecology, and I love it. I work out in the field about an hour drive from campus up in the hills with the windmills. I work with a parter (who is also my friend) six days a week, given that it does not rain.

The other day as we were driving out to the field, we saw a number of deer running along the wheat fields and grassy hills. After seeing them, I realized how much I really like what I am doing. I have a wonderful job, being about to be outside, to be out in nature, and to be able to see animals and plants that live in the area. I am so lucky to call this my job and to be able to experience the beauty of nature all around me. Even the commute to work and from work, about 2 hours total a day, is enjoyable. If I commuted that long to work everyday back at home in the city, I guarantee you that I would hate it. However, this is different; I get to see such beautiful landscape and agriculture that it doesn't even feel like I am making a dreadful commute.

These are some of the shade plots up on the south facing slopes. You can see that three are covered and three are not. (look for the rebar)

The field!

More of the field! (Ignore the signature. My computer automatically put that on there.)

Counting and labeling bluebunch seedlings in a shade plot.

Just had to do this. 

Lupin. 

A view from the road overlooking the land.

No doubt, I will be getting a beautiful farmer's tan. It will be a new tan I'll have to get used to, as I've had (before coming to college) 3 or so "permanent" bathing suit tan lines previously that have now gone away due to the lack of sun exposure during the school year.

As for the rest of my time here during the summer, I have a ton of bucket list things and goals I have yet to accomplish, one of which is to blog weekly. They are currently in the works of being made, but I'll share them when they're accomplished. I'll be doing this work until mid-July, and I have not yet decided what my plans are for the rest of the summer yet. I'd like to do some volunteering at some local farms and I would also like to go backpacking at some point. We'll see :)