Baby Foxes!

(Photo by Kaylynne Michelle Art and Photography)

It must be spring because the baby foxes are out!
For a while we've suspected that the fox that's been living in a valley behind our backyard had babies, and we were right! She's got 4 for sure (possibly 5, but we've only seen about 4 out at once). The lense I rented (a Nikkor 70-300mm zoom lens) definitely helped me get some better shots of the babies - a telephoto would probably have pulled in a smidge closer but I've only used standard and zoom lenses and wasn't sure if a telephoto lens might be more complex than those. This 70-300 is an amazing lens though - and it's even got vibration reduction (which helps when you're trying to photograph a rambunctious baby fox!)

(Photo by Kaylynne Michelle Art and Photography)

Anyway, since the lens arrived I've probably taken around 300 photos of the fox and her babies, and I plan to go through them and pull out the best ones...when I find the time (and energy) to actually dig through all 300+ photos! For now, these are just a few photos that I managed to pull out just for this blog post!

(Photo by Kaylynne Michelle Art and Photography)

Finding Your Inner Ada

Image from Wikipedia

A few months ago, I signed a pledge to be one of about 1500 bloggers to blog about a woman in technology on Ada Lovelace day (which happens to be today, March 24^th). The reason for this is because amongst the Jobs, Gates, and Wozinaks of the world there are few women, and although this minority in the technology community continues to grow, it is a slow growth which could be helped with the recognition of its many successful members.

While the pledge requests that each blogger recognizes a woman he or she admires in the field of technology, I instead want to spotlight every woman with the courage and perseverance to work towards gaining her chosen technological career. Just the thought of finding and keeping a job in this economy can seem intimidating, and the idea of entering a field dominated by men can make it seem even more so. Luckily, we have Ada to look up to! In learning about Ada’s life, we can learn some tricks to sticking it to the men and standing out in the technological field.

Ada Lovelace is considered to be the “first programmer,” due to her writings about the analytical engine, a machine invented by Charles Babbage, in which she included notes on the potential of such a machine which could exceed basic calculation but could one day run coded programs as well. Later, the U.S. Defense Department would name a computer program after her: Ada.

From Ada’s life we can learn that it is important to:

• Find your passion and your support – Ada’s interest in mathematics dominated her life from a young age thanks to her mother and family friends who supported and homeschooled her in math and science.

• Find a female role model – One of the ideas behind Ada Lovelace day is that women need female role models to look up to. Ada grew up in a male-dominated society, but one of the women who helped teach her was Mary Somerville a notable Scottish scientist and mathematician.

• Learn to Network – Ada was born into a higher class of society and therefore had the privilege of networking and socializing with a number of important people including Charles Babbage, the creator of the analytical engine which would help make her mark on the world. Now, in modern times you can use Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Friendfeed, etc. to meet, socialize, and network with others in the technological field because you never know, that person you just tweeted or messaged might just be your future employer!

• Pay attention – If Ada hadn’t paid so much attention to Babbage’s work on the analytical engine, she might not have come up with her own ideas of potential computer programs. Pay attention to things that are going on in your chosen field, you never know when an opportunity will present itself!

Just because there seems to be more men in the field of technology doesn’t mean you’ll be the only woman there! If you work hard there isn’t any reason why next year, instead of Ada Lovelace day, we’ll be celebrating [Your Name Here] day to honor women in technology! I want to wish all women currently preparing to enter the field of technology the best of luck and I hope that next year I will be blogging about you and your achievements!

Baby Foxes!

For a while now we've been watching a pair of foxes living out in a valley behind our backyard and we've suspected the past few weeks that the two may have started a little family! Yesterday we got to see the babies for the first time, here are a few photos I snapped of them hanging around their little fox hole:






Unfortunately this is as close my camera is able to zoom in to see these cute little creatures (these pictures have actually be cropped a LOT and then re-sized which unfortunately lowers the quality), so I decided to rent a lens from a camera lens rental place based in Boulder, CO - the lens should be here by Wednesday or Thursday so hopefully I'll be able to get some better shots of the babies, hopefully ones which I can add to my portfolio! Wish me luck!

COOKIES!

(Photo by Kaylynne Michelle Art and Photography)

Today my sweet tooth started to act up a bit, however, since I'm trying to force encourage myself to eat healthier, I decided to use one of my psuedo-healthy cookie recipes (I've tried two, but I have a bunch saved in my bookmarks to try later on). I made my favorite "Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal, Flaxseed Cookies" (which my younger siblings and my mother all enjoy despite the addition of flaxseed and oatmeal) using my own variation on a recipe which I found online a long time ago (and I have yet to find the original website again, however in searching for the original recipe I discovered that there is a variation of this recipe called 'lactation cookies' which includes brewer's yeast in the ingredients - apparently brewer's yeast and flaxseed can help to increase lactation in breastfeeding women, who knew!)

Anyway, I thought I'd go ahead and post the original recipe on here - everyone should try these awesome cookies (and you can tell yourself that they're a necessary addition to your diet because they're 'healthy')

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Flaxseed Cookies

Ingredients:

1 c butter or margarine

1 c sugar

1c brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 c all purpose flour

1 c oatmeal

½ c ground flaxseed

½ tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 c chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°

1) Cream margarine or butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, beat well.

2) Mix flour, oatmeal, flaxseed, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir into creamed mixture, add chocolate chips.

3) Form into 1 in balls. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet leaving 2 in between cookies

Bake 350° for 10 min.

My variation is basically a couple changes in ingredient amounts (cut the sugar and flour, add more flaxseed) and the addition of cinnamon.

Now if you don't know about flaxseed, you should know it doesn't do much to affect the taste of the cookies (because it's really more of a flour when its been ground), and it helps lower cholesterol and blood pressure and there are some studies which suggest that flaxseed can even help to fight against heart disease, diabetes, and even breast cancer. So enjoy these cookies and their benefits!

Challah Back!

Despite having a bunch of homework to work on today, I decided I'd try out this new High-Altitude Challah Bread recipe that I stumbled across a few days ago. I first made challah bread last December and my younger siblings absolutely loved it (and it doesn't hurt that the name sounds like slang, ie "Holla!") they ate an entire loaf within a couple of hours! They've been asking me to make another loaf for a while and since I found this recipe (which makes just one loaf - most recipes you can find online will make 2 or even 3 large loaves) I decided to go ahead and make some.

This recipe came out pretty good, I probably should have let it rise a little more, but it still tasted good, and as always, the crust with the egg wash was beautiful! We had learned last time I made this bread that it makes really awesome french toast, but tonight we learned that it's good for grilled cheese sandwiches too!

(Note the icky fake cheese that comes in plastic squares - obviously this was not MY sandwich!)

The nice thing about making bread is that you can do things between kneadings and risings which makes it a perfect baking activity to do while doing homework because it gives you a short break from studying every hour or so!

I should get back to homework now!