The last half of July and most of August have been a whirlwind of rare plant monitoring and GeoBOB! I’ve been helping out a lot with Silene spaldingii (SISP2) monitoring – I’ve been to sites with 50+ plants (not usually so robust!) – and with that comes updating GeoBOB, a geographic database used for biological observations of rare/threatened/endangered plants and animals. Once I got through the training, I was ready to go! I’ve been lucky enough to see populations of over 100 plants and located 2 new sites! It’s been a great year for not just SISP2, but most late spring and summer plants, much in part to the heavy spring rains! As the SISP2 monitoring wound down, I was lucky enough to get to spend a week at the San Juan Islands National Monument collecting seeds.

The timing lined up perfectly with the eclipse, which was ~90% visible at the Islands. That Monday morning I went out with a park ranger named Rosie (if you BLMers read the articles on Inside Passage, Rosie was featured in a story a few weeks back about working with Junior Rangers on the islands) to Iceberg Point to get a feel for the island’s plant life and for Rosie to complete the monitoring at Iceberg Point Monument. We counted about 23 people, 2 dogs (on leashes!! Go Humans!), and 23 sea lions! While there we enjoyed the eclipse; Lopez Island got considerably cooler and the sunlight dimmed, although nothing like what was experienced by those in the path of totality.

Tuesday, I was island hopping with Nick, the outdoor recreation planner, (also featured on a recent Inside Passage article) to Cattlepoint, another part of the monument found on San Juan Island. He was going out to meet with a contractor doing some work on the lighthouse, and I was going to attempt to collect some seeds in the sand dunes and coastal prairie area. Once we finished up at Cattlepoint, Nick got a message from a volunteer letting him know they had spotted a part of a broken buoy that was stuck on the shoreline out at American Camp (another part of the Monument, and technically National Park Service land). What I’ve quickly learned about the Islands out here is that everyone helps each other out. Our BLM office out there has many partners and they work together to ensure that the lands out on the islands stay as ‘wild and native’ as possible. On our way to American Camp, Nick was telling me the story about American Camp, English Camp, and the Pig War. Little did I know, but this monument was actually where the only known war (during the settlement of the United States) had been avoided.

History goes that at American Camp there was a soldier by the name of Lyman Cutlar that had created his garden and recently planted potatoes; he was quite proud of his little production. In English Camp, there was a soldier by the name of Charles Griffin; Griffin owned a pig, a rather mischievous pig. Griffin’s pig would sneak into Cutlar’s garden and dig up Cutlar’s potatoes, making Cutlar understandably angry. Cutlar warned Griffin that his pig was trespassing and digging up his potatoes; Cutlar also warned Griffin that if his pig didn’t cut it out, Cutlar would kill the pig. Of course, Griffin couldn’t stop the pig, the pig continued stealing potatoes, and Cutlar followed his threat of killing the pig.This situation was what eventually (nearly) led to war; known as the Pig War. However, before any battles broke out an arbitrator, Kaiser Wilhem I of Germany, was able to peacefully resolve the war. And there you have it, the short (hi)story of the Pig War. TLDR: A British pig was stealing potatoes from an American garden. The garden’s proprietor, an American soldier shot the British Pig. The pig’s owner, a British soldier, found out; the two sides nearly went to war over a pig and some potatoes.

Anyway, without much luck, Nick and I did not find the styrofoam part of the buoy (and hope that someone else does before it gets blown to smithereens by a storm and does some real damage to the wildlife).

Wednesday, I was able to go out with another volunteer of the monument in search of some seeds. It was a great day spend hiking at Watmough Bay (where the salmon are begging to be fished) and the Holodiscus discolor (ocean spray) was perfect for collecting. Because I was only there for a week, I didn’t get to collect any vouchers since the plants had already gone to seed, and thus no pictures of ocean spray in flower.

Thursday, I went island hopping to San Juan Island again to meet up with one of the monument’s many partners. Eliza, part of the San Juan County Landbank, was creating local pollinator seed packets, and I was going to take a tour of Red Mill Farm and help create seed packets. But of course, not without a mishap. In my early morning stupor, I managed to get on the ferry right before the one I was actually supposed to take, and wound up back in the Americas, as the islanders would say. After boarding the correct ferry, I met up with Eliza, and got to learn more about the partnerships BLM has forged out on the islands. It’s so great to see the entire community rallying behind native plant preservation and land conservation, and really just trying to be better environmental stewards. Another cool fact I learned is that the San Juan Islands have adopted and created their own Leave No Trace principles, in large part to Nick’s efforts (Thanks, Nick!!).

Friday, I also went island hopping with Marcia, the monument manager. We had plans of wading out to Indian Island from Orcas Island – having been told the tide would be somewhere between 3 to 10 inches, to collect some native seed. We got out there and were surprised that the tide was indeed not 3 to 10 inches, but we gave it a shot anyway. As the water level began to near our knees, we didn’t think it would be wise to continue since we weren’t even at the deepest part yet, and didn’t plan on needing to swim over. While I didn’t get to visit Indian Island, I can say I’ve officially been in the Salish Sea! While waiting for the ferry, we stopped at a bakery, and grabbed some of the most delicious pastries I’ve tried (their pan au chocolat definitely rivals the ones I had in France)! So if you ever find yourself on Orcas Island in Washington, make it a point to check out Brown Bear Baking. You won’t regret it. Also check out the history museum, it’s got this cool sculpture outside with describing how man came to be from an old native tale, very interesting!

As I said my goodbyes to the islands, I couldn’t help but stop by Orcas on my way back to the mainland and snag some goodies to enjoy in Spokane. Once I got back to Anacortes, I had thought I would drive down to Seattle and explore the city a bit more. But, like much of my plans, they changed, and I found myself driving to North Cascades National Park. Of course, with it being the National Park Service’s 101st birthday (Happy belated NPS!) and the start of classes lingering ominously, all the campgrounds within reasonable distance were full, so I took a quick little hike up Thunder Knob to get a spectacular view of Diablo Lake. Thanks to the rangers that recommended it, and I hope that their stations get less busy since today is the last day senior passes are $10!!

After my little short excursion, I drove through the rest of the Cascades enjoying a spectacular sunset, and found myself back in Spokane. A busy week full of amazing views; I honestly couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunities CLM has given me. Here’s to making the most of the next 2 months I have left in the Border Field Office.

Until next time,

V

Odlin Beach, Lopez Island, WA

Sunset at Odlin Beach, Lopez Island, WA

Island Art that explains how man came to earth, Orcas Island, WA

Watmough Bay, BLM, Lopez Island, WA

Diablo Lake from Thunder Knob, North Cascades National Park, WA

It’s hard to believe five months have already come and gone. Writing this, I am currently looking down the last week I have of this internship, before I pack up and road-trip back to the Midwest. Last May, I departed from the bustling Chicago-land area to begin work out here in Burns, Oregon, a town that prides itself on having more cattle than people. My concept of Oregon had predominantly been formed by alleged Big-Foot sightings and shows like Portlandia and Twin Peaks. I had been completely unware of the Eastern desert half of the state, a cowboy’s paradise.

The land here is vast and open. The horizons stretch on forever, occasionally broken by juniper and sage-brush covered mountains far off in the distance. Sunsets and sunrises are humbling to witness, creating scarlet bands on the edge of the sky that encompasses your entire field of vision. The land may be dry and at first glace empty, but upon closer examination, it is teeming with life. Elk, mule deer, and antelopes dash alongside the roads. Wild horses gallop in packs up and down steep slopes with tremendous ease. On the ground, lizards and snakes dart from rock to rock, while hawks, osprey, and turkey vultures whiz by, or circle overhead. Streams and rivers lay hidden, tucked in mountain valleys, and hot springs gurgle and emerge from the ground on the edges of the desert. This is a quite place, and a beautiful place.

Being able to work out in this land has been a privilege I won’t soon forget. I have learned much, both on a professional and personal level. This job is through the Bureau of Land Management, and has been an eye-opening experience on how the government functions, as well as how there can be so many wildly varying (and often justifiable) opinions towards the government. The BLM is focused on land management, and as a result must take into account resource extraction, livestock utilization, recreation use, archeological value, and environmental sustainability, all at once, for the same plot of land. Each of these interests are overseen by different departments in the BLM office, and each of these interests have different third-party activist groups either strongly in-favor, or strongly opposed to the actions of the BLM. From my limited perspective, it seems hard to appease both environmental groups and cattle ranchers, when a land plot must be used for both cattle grazing, recreation, and be simultaneously preserved in a sustainable manner. While the BLM does its best to placate all of these array of interests, it is not always infallible. The BLM, like any organization, is composed of people who come with their own biases, and are capable of making mistakes. This is not to say the BLM is ineffective; in fact, I believe the BLM is a million times better than the alternative of having no regulatory force over these large swaths of land. In my short time here, I have discovered the BLM does amazing work and I do genuinely think it is slowly improving the land here, as well as the relationships with the large web of people it must work with.

On a personal level, working here has been pretty eye opening post 2016-election. I hail from the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, an area with a heavy liberal demographic tilt, and as a result, I was a bit hesitant coming out to this rural and conservative area after such a divisive and polarizing election. In my time here, during offhand conversations, I was bluntly asked strong political-value based questions (e.g. gun control, affirmative action, immigration policy, etc.) and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to have dialogue with people of starkly opposing opinions. Now this wasn’t always the case, and sometimes conversations had to be dropped as soon as they were started, but for the most part, I found myself having constructive back and forth talks about issues that I had formerly believed to have no middle-ground. And while opinions weren’t always changed, I think for the most part, both parties walked away more sympathetic to where the other side was coming from, even if we agreed to disagree. On a deep level, this has provided me a lot of hope for the future of this country.

In a week I will begin a road-trip home. I will leave here with many good memories much to reflect on. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to work out here, the other interns I worked with, the people I met, and the beautiful nature I saw. I will be leaving, but I think I shall be coming back in the near future…after all, supposedly Big-Foot is still out here, waiting to be discovered.

-Carter Cranberg (Burns/Hines District BLM)

Indian Paintbrush

My Cubicle

Wild Horse Rush Hour

Wild-Horse Lake

The whole Carson City team drove to the coast

To be trained at a university research outpost.

We met agency employees and consultants

Every one of whom about plants was exultant.

The instructors were such plant enthusiasts,

That we didn’t mind foggy weather forecasts.

They also knew all the local vegetation

And were able to help us through all our frustration.

The goal of the course was to learn about classes

Of California vegetation, of which there are masses.

The book listing them all is such a huge tome

That there’s no way we ever could bring one back home.

We practiced two methods for determining types,

Though agreeing on answers caused quite a few gripes.

Estimating cover was somewhat contentious

And about their judgment a few were pretentious.

Finally our decisions were all calibrated,

And similar values each species was rated.

We learned to classify both plots and whole stands

And tried out the methods in valleys and uplands.

We learned how the data would be analyzed,

And how vegetation types for each point be advised.

Each type is defined by species and their cover —

It’s quite thrilling when the right one is discovered.

Now every time we go out to find seeds

We’ll look differently at associated species.

How rare is this veg type? What patterns are there?

We see vegetation types change everywhere.

It’s a whole different way to look at a landscape

And when we look out, a map starts to take shape.

Just imagine if every type someday were defined

And on a big map communities were outlined.

This level of detail gives so much information

Vital for landscape management plan creation.

Thanks CNPS, and our amazing teachers,

For showing us a new lens for ecological features.

It’s hard to believe that I have just over one month left in my internship here in Carson City, Nevada. There is, however, still much to do with the remaining time that I have.

My team and I just returned from a week long escapade in coastal California. The first part of the trip was a mini vacation, in which we got to explore the undulating streets of downtown San Francisco, camp in the breathtaking Big Basin Redwood Forest and discover the wonders of Angel Island.

The second part of this excursion was dedicated to the rapid vegetation assessment and releve(accent over the second “e”) course we signed up for. This training showed us how to assess a given stand of vegetation to determine what plants occurred in an area and how abundant they were. This data can then be used to map the area in GIS which can then be utilized by land managers.

The remainder of the internship will be designated for SOS collections. Next week my crew and I will be heading to the Mono Lake area, which I am really excited for.

Until next time,

Jason Fibel, BLM-Carson City

The Roseburg BLM office is unique in the amount of timber land it manages. Public timber land is certainly not something I (a Wisconsin native) am used to, but I’ve come to love the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest. And I am slowly coming to understand the very complicated and ever-changing Resource Management Plan the BLM uses to try to meet its multi-faceted objectives of supplying timber, providing recreation areas, and preserving biodiversity.

Over the past month, I have had a number of exciting opportunities to tag along with a number of foresters with different amounts of formal education and experience (ranging from a few classes to a phd). Through these experiences, I have absorbed some very big picture ideas of forest management paradigms and practices, as well as many hands-on, practical, and specific management techniques.

The first foresters I tagged along with were actually conducting a PCT (Pre-Commercial Thinning) which involved thinning out land units that were designated for timber harvest (check out the specifics here!) Much of my botany internship here focused on grasses and forbs, and I actually spent a lot of time hiking through the forest in order to find open meadows. Trees were not necessarily a destination, merely something to get through. With these foresters however, I learned to make educated guesses about fertilization treatments, thinning treatments, stand age, and land allocation types just by walking through the understory and being observant towards the average distance between trees, the straightness of the trunks, the distance at which foliage starts, the diameters, the crown development, the amount of sunlight that permeates through the canopy, etc.While flagging the boundary of the thinning unit, I learned the art of controlled slides down cliffs, bushwhacking through literally anything, and tying knots in less than a second. This was certainly a fun day and a great introduction to the hands-on, day-to-day of forest management.

In fact, it is a higher up position within the BLM that decides when PCTs need to take place. The District Silviculturist is in charge of identifying when, where, and how much to thin out a unit. The Roseburg Swiftwater Silviculturist occupies the cubicle next to ours, and was kind enough to take us out on a field trip the next week to show  us how she actually collects data on different units.

First, she creates a random set of sites within a unit. Then, she visits each site and estimates the basal area, canopy cover, and takes the DBH and age of a subset of the trees.   After enough random sites, a statistically robust representation of the entire unit can be made.

Different units have different abiotic conditions, such as the amount of sunlight, water, and soil nutrients that are available to them. This can make a drastic difference in the growth rate of the trees and the overall density of trees that can be maintained. Using growth charts that are specific to these different forest subregions, the silviculturist will then make a determination of whether a PCT is advisable, the ideal tree spacing to thin to, and when a thinning or regeneration harvest (more colloquially known as a clearcut harvest) should take place.

Lastly, some bigger picture concepts I’ve picked up on. The BLM occupies an interesting position in that we are tasked with two seemingly contradictory goals; on the one hand we are given a target in terms of millions of board feet we need to produce each year, and at the same time on the same land we manage habitats for botanical diversity, endangered species, and recreation. The BLM is often sued both by private timber companies for not supplying sufficient timber, and by environmental groups for destroying the habitats we are required by law to protect. It’s often said a good compromise leaves both sides unhappy, and this often seems to be the case with the BLM. There is perhaps no right answer, other than ultimately this is a organization meant to represent the will and interests of the public, and balance opposing interests in the most fair and transparent way possible.

But it is also important to keep in mind that the science of land management is still being improved! Researchers and public land managers are always innovating on ways to maximize the biodiversity and timber production that we can have from public land. The BLM for instance, does not do 100% total clearcuts like private timber companies will. The benefits of leaving around 10 trees per acre can result in large improvements in the ecological health by allowing legacy effects to affect future succession, while not severely cutting into the amount of board feet the unit ultimately produces. Another increasingly popular practice is Variable Retention Harvests, which essentially is removing timber from a unit unevenly, to create structural complexity instead of a monoculture of the same age and type of trees. Additionally, there are many important species that only thrive in the early successional stages of forests. While old growth forest is certainly important and needs protection, forest succession through wildfires and management by Native Americans has been taking place for thousands of years. I was very lucky to hear about the many new practices that are being adapted by public land managers tagging along with a group of graduate students from the University of Washington on their field trip to Douglas County.

I have certainly had an amazing time these past four months learning all about grasses, forbs, fires, and forests. And I am looking forward to the next month and what it will entail!

Temperatures are dropping rapidly in Idaho, and I’m ready to flee before my long route back to New England starts getting snowy.

Our work truck one chilly morning. Freezing cold in October is normal in New England. Freezing cold a week after 90 degree averages is just one of those Idaho things.

When I was first offered a CLM position in Shoshone, ID, I was honestly very hesitant to accept. I didn’t know anything about Idaho, and it was frightening to consider living in a remote area so far from everyone and everything I’ve ever known. Looking back now, I’m grateful to my past self that I took that leap! My time with the BLM was an incredibly valuable experience with awesome co-workers, and Idaho has been a beautiful place to explore.

I’ve been doing some last minute projects for the past month. We wrapped up our assessments of 5 Year ESRs – areas that burned 5 years ago and were seeded to hopefully maintain a healthy habitat. This was absolutely my favorite project of the summer – other CLM interns and I worked together judging whether seeded plants had successfully established in old fire areas, and wrote reports discussing our findings and recommending further management actions. It was awesome insight into how the BLM makes large-scale management and funding decisions.

The last few weeks have been given to sagebrush mapping, which is pretty dull work, but vital to sagebrush seed collection efforts. We often drove 7-8 hours a day checking on isolated sagebrush populations – whether we had the right species, how big the population was, how productive the plants were, insect damage, etc. We found ourselves alternating between confidence and complete confusion in regards to sagebrush ID, but I think we found our groove by the end. Hopefully we found enough good Wyoming big sagebrush populations for seed collection, which will be carried out later this fall.

Mountings of my SOS co-workers specimens, plus sagebrush mapping specimens to confirm which species we found. Many that we initially thought were Wyoming turned out to be Big basin, a less desirable species. Oops.

I recently got to check out a juniper treatment project – large swaths of juniper are removed to increase sage-grouse habitat, with the added benefit of reducing fire risks in mountain areas. It was a bit shocking to see the destruction and desolation created by the machines, but the result will hopefully be healthy sagebrush slopes with plenty of habitat for sage-grouse. Sometimes environmental management isn’t pretty, but the results are worthwhile.

These machines grind up juniper and reduce it to shreds – scary! But the downed juniper will insulate seeded plants through the winter.

Temporarily ugly. What was once a low diversity juniper forest will soon be prime sagebrush/sage-grouse habitat.

Learning about all of this management and project assessment stuff was great, because I’ve been leaning more toward a professional career in natural resources management than botany. However, I am disappointed that my botanical skills weren’t noticeably strengthened this summer. Working with a fuels crew meant that we saw pretty degraded habitats that were recovering slowly from recent fires – a whole lot of cheatgrass, Sandbergs bluegrass, phlox and not much else. It was awesome to learn a lot more about grasses, I was lucky enough to attend a Carex identification workshop, and we searched for rare plants on several occasions, but more opportunities to botanize would have been great to help me learn the families better. It’s something I’m determined to improve upon in my own time.

Like I mentioned above, working with the BLM helped me develop a lot of confidence in natural resources. But I’m 100% certain that my choice to live away from my known world for a while did more for my confidence than all of that (valuable as it still was!). To anyone who might be reading this blog after receiving a similar offer from CLM, do it. Leave your big city world, or rural corner of the country, and test yourself with something new and maybe a little scary. I moved from Boston to rural and very-much-on-fire Idaho, made friends from strangers, and learned a whole new set of plants in a whole new set of environments. Kinda doubt that anything’s gonna seem insurmountable after this.

Bye Idaho! I look forward to seeing your scenic vistas again someday.

It’s hard to believe 5 months ago I was fresh in Twin Falls, ID, starting my first botany tech job, adjusting to a new landscape that felt unknown and alien. 5 months ago I couldn’t see the end of it. I felt so far away, geographically and otherwise, to the things and places and people that felt like home. It was a rough transition, and to be honest I never quite adjusted to it. But people told me, and I knew, it would fly by. And it did. I leave Idaho in three days and could not be more excited, and am also grateful for what this experience has given me. It’s so important to step out of your familiar bubble- it challenges us to grow and communicate in different ways. It introduces us to new plants and ecosystems. It reminds us of how big the world is.

I spent a good amount of time kayaking on the Snake River. I <3 water sports

Kayak parking spot

It was an interesting experience to be the guinea pig of having a CBG intern on the fuels crew in the Twin Falls office. My official title was “botanical specialist,” though half the time I felt like I was floundering in plant identification in a place completely new to me, while having the people on my crew look to me as their expert. I was learning and teaching at the same time and it really didn’t make me feel very confident. I’m skilled in taxonomy but the speed in which I was expected (or felt like I was expected) to know these new species felt overwhelming at times. I also had almost no experience in grass identification, which was a huge percentage of what we were looking at.
There were a couple crash courses in plant ID of the area in the very beginning, but after that I felt mostly left to my own devices. There weren’t a lot of people I was able to turn to in the office. At least people I was introduced to- as the season went on I would randomly meet people to ask when I had an unknown, but it wasn’t facilitated.
It got easier, and I felt more confident as I saw plants more often, and honestly forb diversity was pretty low in most of the areas we monitored anyway, so there weren’t many I needed to commit to memory. I guess I was just expecting more of a botany mentorship.

Mimulus nanus looking adorable

Bitter root (Lewisia rediviva) is one of my favorite flowers and I got to see it more than I ever have before this summer. Look at those stamens dang.

Overall though, I did enjoy working in the fire program. I’m interested in fire ecology, and reading old reports on fires and then using them in conjunction with the new data we collected to write new reports was fascinating, and gave me a taste of what it takes to make management recommendations. It also inspired me to go out and get my Red Card next year, because I am interested in prescribed burns.
I also familiarized myself more with ArcGIS (my arch nemesis), learned to use Avenza and Collector, got better at reading maps and using compasses, learned techniques for rare plant monitoring, got really good at driving a 4wd truck for crazy amounts of hours on crazy back road mazes, and  learned how to navigate the bureaucracy that is work in the federal government. I feel more confident in applying to jobs now.
I still do wish I had been placed in the Pacific Northwest, not just because it’s familiar, but because it is where I plan on putting down my roots, therefore finding jobs. Monitoring sagebrush steppe is very different than monitoring coniferous forests, with it a whole other host of necessary skills specific to that ecosystem, which I didn’t gain here. But I do believe that my baseline knowledge and skills, along with obviously being able to quickly pick up necessary monitoring techniques and botanical skill, will be enough experience to help me find a job for next field season.

City of Rocks Natural Reserve. I got to work around here for a day last week.

City of Rocks

Truly the gem of this season though was being able to be in a part of the country that I would otherwise spend very little time in. I fell in love with the Sawtooth Mountains to the north. I got to explore Yellowstone. I met badgers and coyotes and moose and three bears (one of which I watched make off with our bag of food). I’m not much of a geology nerd, but I was constantly in awe of the canyons and valleys and volcanic history and crazy rock formations. There may not be jutting mountains or towering trees around Twin Falls, but there are beautiful swimming holes that you don’t see until you walk through farm fields and look into the canyon; and small, fleeting, beautiful flowers; and the stillness of being in an expanse of sagebrush. I appreciate the secret beauty of southern Idaho. I don’t know if I would come back on my own accord, but I am glad I got to know it, even briefly.

Secret lake, hidden from view by expanses of cornfields and pasture. My favorite swimming spot this summer.

Box Canyon- where the water is mesmerizing but frigid

The Bruneau Canyon

Dave’s Creek,The Jarbridge Wilderness. We had a work camping trip here to collect tree data.

I am obsessed with the Sawtooths

OBSESSED I TELL YOU

Monitoring Castelleja christii- a Paintbrush endemic to the top of Mt Harrison.

Anemone patens looking real good with my mani in SE Montana

So did this adorable Lewisia pygmaea- Pygmy Bitter Root

Seas of Erythronium grandiflorum in SE Montana (Glacier Lily)

Ok I did some pretty cool things this summer.

Sofia V

Well the time has come to leave the sagebrush expanse and be welcomed home to by the colors and smells of autumn in Pennsylvania.

Once upon a time I thought I couldn’t get anywhere without a GPS. Using maps was a long-forgotten memory… where my parents tried their best to plan our summer vacation, but there was always the sound of scrambling papers when we inevitably got lost. But out in no-service-land, maps were A MUST to navigate the Nevada wilderness. And now, with these brand new skills to navigate roadways, I remain biased and will never choose maps over a GPS (when there is a choice).

Shout out to Payton’s playlists and audiobooks. They have kept us sane when we spent an entire workday in the truck.

We usually saw Nevada wilderness through the windshield.

The Nevada wilderness conditions Payton and I have been exposed to makes me appreciate what we have taken for granted. I will never look at paved roads the same way, even with monstrous potholes. Once you’ve had to navigate narrow dirt roads sprinkled with sharp rocks and half-meter-deep channels overlooking a 200 foot drop, paved roads are a blessing. And let’s just say toilets with plumbing… toilets in general really are human’s greatest invention.

A shortcut through the Sillwater mountain range in central Nevada took us to anxiously high places.

I find it odd that I feel like I know western plant species more than I know eastern ones, and I shouldn’t resist this idea of change. I feel like this entire internship’s theme revolved around change. I’ve immersed myself into a new ecosystem, a new workplace, a new community and culture, and a new field experience. Adjusting to change has its benefits: I have a whole page of new skills to take me to my next job, internship, and future career.

Kalmia microphylla, western swamp laurel, is a reminder of home and PA’s state flower, mountain laurel.

Our work is only a small piece to the large puzzle, but progress is not made in leaps and bounds.I’m grateful to contribute to a program that promotes long-term restoration and conservation efforts.

It’s been fun!

Alyssa Hay

Yesterday, Susan, Virginia and I went back up to Heber Springs, AR, about 2 hours north of Hot Springs. Heber Springs is the location for the Arkansas Native Plant Society meeting this weekend, and we went to scout out a couple of trails that Virginia, the president of ANPS, and Susan, the president elect, will be leading plant walks on.

Virginia and Susan key out an aster.

The first trail we went to was Collins Creek, where a pipe from the bottom of the Greer’s Ferry dam shoots icy water into a stream and creates artificial trout habitat.

Pipe from dam shooting cold water into Collins Creek.

It hasn’t rained much lately, so there isn’t too much to see botanically. Susan and Virginia searched for plants they could tell ANPS members about on the hikes. Our second location was called Bridal Veil Falls. When we arrived, the falls had dried to a tiny trickle.

Susan and Virginia at the top of the dry falls.

In the top left is a viewing platform, in the bottom left you can see Susan standing at the top of the falls. I was on a cliff above, taking pictures of moss.

Don’t you think there is a tardigrade in here somewhere??

We managed to find some noteworthy plants, including Castanea ozarkensis, Ozark Chinquapin, which is a sensitive species. We also saw several Spiranthes or ladies tresses orchids at the top of the falls.

Spiranthes sp.

And a more common oak species, recognizable by its unique gesture.

Quercus falcata, Southern red oak

And the ever stunning beautyberry.

Callicarpa americana, beautyberry.

We will head back up to Heber Springs this Friday for the meeting, which will take place at Quality Inn conference center and kick off with a potluck and plant auction, ANPS’s biggest fundraiser. I have less than 3 weeks left in my internship, so this will be a good finale of sorts. I hope everyone is having fun!

G

Wow. What a summer this has been! I will try to succinctly summarize the last two months and reflect on the CLM experience overall:

First, I’d like to say thank you to Fall for coming. Although it was a rather abrupt shift, the outdoor temperature in the Twin Falls District is FINALLY tolerable and I have (for the most part) stopped sweating 24/7. YESSSSS. Swee(a)t relief.

The post-blowout pile of lovely invasives accumulated under the explorer

Second, the primary seed collection season (for forbs at least) in southern Idaho wrapped up in late July, so lately Patricia and I have been mapping sagebrush populations throughout the entire district in hopes of finding the “perfect” site for collecting Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata wyomingensis) when it eventually sets seed. This has proved to be tougher than expected as Wyoming big sage and Basin big sage hybridize in certain habitats, making field identification tricky.

We’ve also thoroughly tested the BLM road-appropriateness of the 2009 Ford Explorer to find it handles far better than one would expect! Shout out to the Explorer for fording streams, climbing mountains, dealing with rock after rock after rock, straddling ruts, and most of all, having A/C. Oh, and not catching on fire (see above).

A recent view from a potential Wyoming sagebrush collection site near the Nevada border

Some cute LBM’s amongst the sagebrush on a damp summer morning (I wish my fungi identification skills were better but plants provide enough confusion and frustration for the time being)

More views from mapping (seconds before a nasty thunderstorm)

5 AM wake up calls are not too bad when you’re blessed with witnessing sunrises with clouds like these!

A friendly resident of Bench Lakes (Sawtooth National Forest)… photogenic lil’ bugger

One of the few beautiful late summer bloomers: Eriogonum microthecum. Thank you for brightening my day!

A fellow explorer of the sagebrush steppe… horny lil bugger

Disappointed that I couldn’t capture a better representation of Bruneau Canyon’s beauty. It is truly exquisite.

Dierke’s Lake Park: the provider of tricky overhung climbing routes, questionably sanitary swimming, and cotton candy sunsets

Third, besides navigating BLM roads and staring at sagebrush all day, we were able to work on other projects including: riparian photo points of the Little Wood River, scouting Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and Pinyon pine stands (Pinus monophylla) for potential collections, and monitoring the effectiveness of juniper thinning and post-fire restoration projects which allowed us to camp near a scenic creek. We also journeyed 2 miles into one of the longest caves in the continental US, rock on!

When you spend 8 hours each day looking at sagebrush, you’re bound to find one that looks like a tree– thus a new species was discovered: Artetreesia tridentreeta

The cone and needles of Pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla)… sappy lil bugger … only took 2 hand sanitizer and 4 hot water rinses to be rid of the stickiness

You could say that camping out for Idaho Mountain Festival at Castle Rocks State Park was a bit colder than expected. However, gathering with fellow climbers with breathtaking views was well worth only getting up one route.

Overall, the CLM internship has been an absolute blast. I feel incredibly grateful to have participated in various projects and explore the most special areas of the district. I had the privilege of not only collecting seeds in stunning surroundings for work but also leading a nature walk for 4H’ers, camping along a remote creek, exploring the Chicago Botanic Garden, and keying several of my favorite plants (Carex and Juncus species). I was able to vastly improve my GIS skills using ArcMap, my techniques in creating herbarium specimens, and ability to drive on unmaintained roads.

In addition, my overall botanical knowledge increased tremendously as I am now fairly comfortable using Intermountain Flora and Plants of the Pacific Northwest, much more familiar with family characteristics, and can confidently identify (at least to genera) most of the Southern Idaho native forbs, shrubs and trees while also understanding their seed anatomy and phenology. After completing countless collections for Seeds of Success, I have such a profound appreciation for the tenacity and triumph of plants and their seeds.

It is so rewarding to see all of our hard work pay off! Some of my favorite SOS species.   Top: Penstemen cusickii.                                          Bottom: Chaenactis douglasii

Lastly, I would like to thoroughly thank my supervisor Danelle for her thoughtful guidance and support throughout the internship, CBG for making this experience possible, Patricia for putting up with me for way too many hours every week, and each of the individuals who made this an unforgettable chapter.

Farewell sagebrush and wide open spaces… the forests are calling!