At the beginning of this month I started my new job at the Bend Seed Extractory and casually moved across the country to Bend, Oregon.

I have never been to the west coast before and was finishing up another internship in Pennsylvania when I was offered the opportunity to move to Oregon and start working at the Seed Extractory starting early September. I immediately said, yes.

Originally, there were a lot of logistics that I didn’t think through before initially accepting this position (such as finding housing and having a car). However, as I began to plan everything started to fall into place- shipped my car (this is pricey, yes), and found a dope girl on Craigslist to live with (craigslist can be weird but once you weed through the weirdos its rather helpful).

Anyway, the west coast has exceeded my expectations. It is BEAUTIFUL. I am originally from Virginia and accustomed to the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Cascades are a entirely different breed of mountain. In addition, I am extremely grateful to have been placed in Bend. This town is amazing! It’s full of hikes, climbing, breweries, and farmers markets that are essentially festivals.

Here’s a pic of me enjoying Black Butte (one of the many hikes Bend has to offer).

Another thing that I wasn’t completely prepared for when I moved here is how intensely different the vegetation is! There are about negative deciduous trees here and everything is a shrub (still beautiful though and let’s remember Bend is essentially a desert). However, I am enjoying learning to identify all the new evergreens in the area, as in VA we have about three options to pick from when there’s a conifer around.

Here’s a picture of a Ponderosa Pine that I can’t figure out how to rotate! (these babies are everywhere and the bark is so cool!!- sorry Im kind of a tree geek)

Anyway, figure I should talk about my new job a bit too and the reason I actually moved to Bend, but instead, I’ll leave you with a picture of the first seed I processed at the extractory and leave you on the edge of your seat to hear all about it next month!

xoxo