Spotlight: Ivy Elizabeth Chatwin

Ivy Elizabeth Chatwin

• Are you in school? If yes what school and what major? Yes, Conservation Biology at BYU, graduating hopefully August 2014 if I can buckle down and force myself to do homework when I would so much rather be outside.
• Are you working? I am a Student Athlete Tutor for Biology and Geology; I also volunteer at Sunspring Ranch and Melville Stables. 
• Husband's Name? Anniversary? Warren Brady Chatwin, March 10 2012
• What is your favorite color? Blue or green, depending on the day. Sometimes I'm randomly feeling yellow.
• What is your favorite food? Vegetables! Especially in soup, or a curry, or chips & salsa, or straight out of the garden (although at the moment, my husband might say that pickles are my favorite food. I've been known to eat a whole jar for lunch and nothing else. I guess it is a little weird that I finished off my breakfast with a kosher dill pickle today...yeah, I eat weird things!).
• Where do you plan on being three years from now? South Bend, IN, while Warren works on his Ph.D. I'll hopefully have a big garden, lots of pets, and a child or two that will climb trees and make mud pies with me. Maybe I'll work as a keeper at the Potawatomi Zoo, or I'll work from home with my parents' business, or I'll sell eggs from my backyard chickens, or train dogs, or maybe do something I haven't even thought of yet (this time last year, I was set on being a science writer or biologist. The year before, a park ranger. Who knows what options & interests a few more years will bring!).
• What is something unique about you and/or do you have a hidden talent? Hmmm...I've been known to catch a horse that I later learned was nearly uncatchable, or pet a cat that actually hates people most of the time, or coax 100% germination out of a questionable packet of seeds. I guess living things can feel how much I like them. 
• What are a few of your hobbies? They change with the seasons; right now I spend pretty much all of my free time (and then some!) with animals or plants because it's Spring! Just yesterday I potted up a bunch of seedlings growing in my windowsills, pruned the perennials outside, mowed the grass for the first time this year, watered the cool-season bed I planted last week, and raked up the leaves to make the yard tidier. I spend a few days each week mucking stalls and riding at Melville Stables in Orem, and I milk goats, exercise horses, do odd jobs and occasionally go on trail rides at Sunspring Ranch in Provo. I also looooooooooovvveeee hiking and camping and climbing and rafting, but haven't had time for long trips or friends to accompany me for a while. :( Hopefully as the weather warms up, I'll be able to get out more! I also enjoy cooking, reading, playing board games, Yoga, wasting time on the Internet, making crafts, listening to Audiobooks and watching Doctor Who, but I'd rather be outside right now because Provo winters give me cabin fever. I guess I have a high requirement for sunlight since I grew up outside in Moab, UT :P
• Do you have a child? Well...I have four fish, which are kind of like children because I have to feed them and clean up their poo but they bring me joy lol. Their names are Tyloses (Google it- will make sense if you know my oak fanatic hubby ;), Nimbus, Tiger, and Red.