I have lived my whole life up until this past month within the warm embrace of the sea. Actually, that is a poetic lie. The Salish Sea has less of a warm embrace and more of a swirling whirlpool of mysterious riptides, algal blooms, freezing water and strange denizens of the deep. My sea is not warm and peaceful but dark, mysterious and deadly.

If Seattle could be said to be in the warm embrace of anything it would be the clouds. Our constant grey blanket traps in heat, light, and moisture making our winter’s dreary and wet, but ultimately mild. Despite an academic understanding of the concept, I never fully understood how much this was a function of the water until I moved over the mountains and away from the ameliorating effects of the sea.

Central Oregon was a revelation. Leaving Seattle I filled my bags with tank tops and sandals, bragging to all my friends about the sunny days I was heading to. My first week of work it snowed twice.

I used to complain about the capricious nature of the weather in the Pacific Northwest, but I now realize I had no idea what I was talking about. Around here you scrape ice off your car before heading to work at seven and then slather yourself with sunscreen before going into the field at ten thirty. Prior to moving here I was warned extensively about the heat, no one mentioned the cold.

These conditions have had an interesting effect on our work environment as well. Our second week of work we headed to a rather remote site in the south of our district to look for a rumored population of Lomatium donnellii. I am no stranger to driving a pick up down potentially treacherous roads but this one was just bad. It was a classic rutted, narrow BLM two track. Even before the cattle guard off the highway we knew what we were in for, it was preceded by a small lake of a puddle which splashed muddy water clear up to our roof. The next thirty minutes were spent skating our half ton work truck across puddle after puddle, thoroughly baptizing it in thick clay mud.

The kiss of death for our trip came in the form of a particularly nasty bit of road. I stopped and looked at the turn, a solid forty five degree angle, completely covered with at least six inches of water over thoroughly saturated, slippery clay soil. I took a moment to consider the embarrassment of calling dispatch for a rescue my second week of work, then turned around. Not even fifty feet back up the road it started snowing.

Not just a light smattering either, a proper flurry of fat flakes which quickly coated the landscape with a picturesque layer of white. I felt a warm sense of vindication in my decision to head back. 

But don’t worry, this story has a happy ending. Last Wednesday after two weeks of warmer, drier weather we returned. This time we quickly made our way down a now dry road to find exactly what we were hoping for, a very healthy population of at least 60 thousand plants in full bloom. Lomatium donnellii is an important species for restoration in our area and this collection will be an important part of our summer’s work. The road to get there may have been bumpy but in the end we got a great outcome and a pretty good story.

S Bower, BLM – Prineville District Office

Sunset after a rain in Weldon, CA

It’s been a month since I arrived in Ridgecrest, California. The Mojave holds a lot of beauty. Everyone tells me spring is the best time to be here and I’m glad to arrive at such a fortuitous time. However as things begin to warm up I’m noticing the faint green shading in the hill sides turning browner and browner.

Last week I participated in some rare plant monitoring in The Kelso Canyon that lies within the Bright Star Wilderness area which is in the Southern Sierras and the northeastern edge of our field office. This is truly a gorgeous area. To drive up out of the desert and see a creek heavily lined with cottonwoods and tufts of grass and nettles is a rare and refreshing sight. Unfortunately, my camera was dead for most of this trip.

But I included some photos of other cool things! I especially enjoy the Beavertail blossoms. This week was also exciting because we got to see our first Desert Tortoise! Such cute little creatures.

Beaver tail cactus bloom

A lone raven over the rademancher hills above ridge crest

Linanthus dichotomous

A close up of the Kelso Creek Monkey Flower

A size comparison of the Monkey flower

The Kelso Creek monkey flower a rare species endemic to this region with only 9 known populations

Wild donkeys

1st Desert Tortoise sighting!!

An accidental selfie taken while trying to photograph a flower

Hope everyone else’s internship is going as well as I feel mine is. I love the desert. Or wherever one might be.

We also made our first seed collection this week. We collected Plantago ovata . This little annual is widespread but has such small little seeds and is often under 6″ tall. This meant lots of stooping to collect nearly microscopic seeds.

Then we collected wildflowers for this weekends upcoming Wildflower festival which is here in Ridgecrest! A great chance to learn the local areas flora. So much variety. I saw at least a 100 different flowers all in the same room! What a information overload but truly worth it.

I think that’s everything!

Robbie Wood

BLM Ridgecrest Field Office

Hello Readers!

I have just started my CLM internship in Rawlins, WY. My internship is different from most other CLM internships as mine is Recreation focused, instead of botany focused. This is my second CLM internship, so I am excited to see how the work differs as my previous internship was botany based. Most of the projects that we will be working on this summer are related to general maintenance/upgrades of recreation sites as well as Wilderness Study Area (WSA) monitoring. Our office is about 3.5 millions acres, so there is lots of space for recreating. There also are 5 WSAs in the field office that we will be working in.

I have been working for about 2.5 weeks now and most of the time has been spend in training. I have been getting myself familiar with the BLM’s recreation management procedures as well as a few other required trainings. Unfortunately, due to the fact that it could snow here until June, I have not been able to do much field work. I did make it out to a few of the recreation sites and see some of the projects that are being planned for the summer.

Coming up in the next few weeks I do have the opportunity to attend a Recreation Workshop that is a week long. I feel like this would be a great learning experience as well as an unofficial kick off to field season in my mind.

Having done a CLM internship before I was aware of how the environment would different from the environment I am used to back home in Michigan. However, I did not anticipate that we could get snow until June! When I left Michigan to travel here spring had arrived. All of our snow had melted and the temperatures were warming up. That was not the case here and it took me a bit to get back into the “winter” mentality. Another thing that I did not anticipate is the wind…..it is always blowing here. However, the town and area does have many promising features that I look forward to exploring this summer. The area is a lot wetter than my previous internship location so I hoping to get to do a little aquatic recreating in my off time. More water also equals a different plant ecosystem and I look forward to seeing how those compare to my previous internship location. The town is also a bigger than the town my previous internship was in and I look forward to exploring it.

Overall, I am looking forward to the exciting new opportunities that my CLM is offering me this summer!

AZ

BLM Rawlins Field Office

Geranium molle – Native to the Mediterranean, now considered a noxious weed in the Pacific Northwest.

Spring is happening! All the color leafing out on the trees and the weedy flowers covering those patches between the sidewalk and road have my heart singing. I arrived in DC in December and I’d never spent any time on the east coast in winter. I knew the woods were dominated by deciduous trees and that they would be naked, but I did not realize just how different it would look compared to all the other places I’ve lived. Gray trunks and branches, brown leaves littering the ground and not much middle or understory to speak of – monochromatic, vertical lines intersecting the horizontal horizon. Beautiful, but a bit dreary and very Blair Witch Project.

Veronica persica – Native to Eurasia, its distribution now spans the continental U.S. (except North Dakota according to the PLANTS database).

Being in an urban environment during this time of year has me thinking about invasiveness, perspective and the definition of nature. Photographing all the cute little weedy flowers blooming along my city walks, I assume most have made it here from elsewhere thanks to human ingenuity and often with detrimental effects. I knew about a few of the most notorious species before I arrived, but not being from here I don’t have a very good idea of who is native and who is moving in and displacing others (plants in the woods and people in the neighborhoods).

One bad boy I’ve been hearing about lately is the Bradford Pear; a white blossomed, early flowering tree that’s rapidly spreading throughout eastern forests. I think it’s a pretty tree, but I haven’t witnessed all its badness. My mentor has lived much of her life on the east coast. She finds the tree hideous – not just because of its invasive qualities, she also finds its architecture and the tree as a whole ugly. In the Pacific Northwest, English holly is an invasive pest. I consider them a bit of an eyesore and couldn’t understand why anyone would want holly growing in their yard. My mentor has two growing in her yard and has mentioned she finds them beautiful, especially in winter. But they (American holly, Ilex opaca) are native here where she lives. It makes me wonder how knowledge of nativeness influences people’s opinion of plants. My knee jerk response of dislike every time I see a holly is fading. Would my mentor think the Bradford pear was beautiful if she saw it growing in its native habitat?

Viola papilionacea – Native! And cute. But still considered a weed. I’ve seen it holding it’s own in weedy lawns.

Vicia sativa – Common vetch is edible and cultivated in many countries, but native only to Southern Europe.

As land managers, we are trained to consider some plants good and others bad. We fight a seemingly endless battle trying to eradicate those bad, introduced species. But it’s not the plant that is bad or wrong or hideous. We are the responsible party.

Stellaria media – Goes by the common name of chickweed. This little guy reminded me of Claytonia. It is edible and has been used in herbal remedies.

Cerastium vulgatum – Also goes by the common name of chickweed. Not sure if you can eat it, but you’re likely to find it in every state you visit.

I have also been wondering how my perspective would change if my only exposure to nature was within an urban environment. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest with access to the Cascade Mountains and the wide open spaces of Eastern Washington from a young age. When I think of nature I generally think of areas beyond the city streets. Places far from shopping malls and subway lines. But nature is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations”. By this definition the built environment of the city is not nature, but what about the oxalis sprouting in the crack of a concrete wall, the weedy plants flowering in an un-mowed lawn, all the squirrels and song birds I see daily on my walk to the Metro? Does our definition of nature discriminate against city parks because they are designed and maintained by humans? What about urban “natural areas”? They too have been weeded and planted by humans. Millions of acres of “natural” landscapes across the US have been seeded or treated for invasive species (on BLM Public Lands and elsewhere). By limiting our definition of the natural environment, we are limiting people’s access to nature. How can we expect those within urban environments to care about protecting or restoring a nature they cannot access?

Lamium amplexicaule – Native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa, henbit has spread across the continental U.S. (including North Dakota according to the PLANTS database)

While in Pittsburgh for the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, I attended a session on protecting and restoring wildlife habitat in urban and suburban areas. Sarah Aucoin from New York City Department of Parks argued that land managers and biologists should expand their view of nature. There are deer in Central Park, eagles in Inwood Hill Park, and endangered piping plovers in Rockaway Park.

Our natural world is changing. Instead of considering nature something I travel to, I intend to help cultivate a healthier version within the cities I live. I am excited to see what else pops up in Washington, DC over the coming weeks!

I had a variety of tasks for this month and really enjoyed working at the preserve. I’m currently stationed at the Cosumnes River Preserve located south of Sacramento, CA working in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management. A large part of the preserve’s mission is to manage the wetlands for resident and migratory bird species. The management is focused a lot on removing invasive species such as Italian thistle and also to promote vegetation that birds like to feed on. Lately, I’ve been collecting a lot of data on the wetlands so we can start looking at their volumes. This is important because it gives information of how to move soil within the wetlands in ways to promote the presence of certain plants. I’ve been working on some trail maintenance also. On some days, I was assigned to treat weedy species with herbicide and also to manage them with the weed eater. Overall, there’s plenty of work for me to do at the preserve and the tasks come in many varieties so that I’m never bored at work. 🙂

One Saguaro for you, Glen Coco! You go, Glen Coco!

That’s why the Nolina parryi is so big—it’s full of secrets!

Greetings from Needles, Ca—The Heart of the Mojave! (At least, that’s what all the signs say.)

Needles is also the home of Snoopy’s brother Spike, but we don’t talk about that.

My main project for the next five months is monitoring rare and sensitive plant species throughout the 3.2 million acres of desert within the NFO. The idea is to identify areas where endangered species (or species that are rare in California but common elsewhere) are present so they can be protected.  This mainly involves identifying favorable habitats, scouting for current populations, adding GIS plot points when a positive ID is made, and some pretty epic views.

Horse Thief Camp in the Kingston mountains

Whipple Wash

Amboy Crater

The view from the top of Amboy Crater!

A few of the rare California species we’ve found so far include hairy blazingstar (Mentzelia hirsutissima), Coves’s cassia (Senna cassia), and saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea).

Hairy blazingstar (Mentzelia hirsutissima)

Hairy blazingstar (Mentzelia hirsutissima)

Sometimes we get the opportunity to assist others with their projects. Earlier this week, we met up with some Northwestern University/Chicago Botanical Gardens graduate students near Prim, NV where they were searching for Walker’s sun cup (Chylismia walkeri tortilis), a member of the Onagraceae family and…

We found it!

Walker’s sun cup (Chylismia walkeri tortilis)

Walker’s sun cup (Chylismia walkeri tortilis)

It was a lot of fun to meet up with other members of the Chicago Botanic Garden clan! I’m looking forward to more collections and collaborations in the coming field season.

Jessica Samuelson

Needles BLM Field Office

When I told friends and family about this position I would be starting in the small, but not too small, town of Wenatchee, WA, the first statement was always “I’ve never heard of it”. My guess about it was as good as theirs. Some town just east of The Cascades with a population of thirty something thousand. Large enough to attract visitors from other parts of the start but small enough to stay off the grid with the rest of the nation. Little did I know that it’s a hidden gem. I drove from Denver with the help of my mother who was equally anxious to see the “quality” of this town neither of us had ever heard of. As we entered the southern part of Washington, we were greeted with agriculture and grasslands with rolling hills as far as the eye could see. After several hours, with 40 miles to go until our destination, we were all but certain this place would be in the middle of nowhere with surrounding cattle fields. Only when the route turned west did we realize that wouldn’t be the case. We turned onto a two lane road that began to descend into a valley. It was completely dark at this point, so as we endlessly curved around corners we only had our imaginations to tell us what the surrounding landscape was like. Finally, after 25 miles of us holding our breath around each corner in preparation of seeing the city did we finally turn to see a valley full of lights flickering. We could see the lights reflecting off the remarkably huge Columbia River that runs right by Wenatchee. After checking into our hotel, we headed to a pub to grab a beer and a bite to eat in celebration of completing our 2 day drive. I was still feeling skeptical about how this place would look in daylight and thinking about what I had potentially gotten myself into by taking this position. Sensing my uneasiness, our server came over and with the biggest smile told me to just wait until morning, I will love it here. She wasn’t wrong.

Three weeks later, I wake up each morning to surrounding hills and snow capped mountains. Wenatchee’s logo is “The Apple Capitol of the World” for a reason. The whole valley within and outside the city is covered with apple orchards as well as pears, cherries, apricots, and wine vineyards. The people of Wenatchee are just as sweet as their fruits. Everyone is so friendly and happy, always giving me advice on where I need eat, hike, camp, etc. I’ve always lived in huge cities (Denver, Houston) with so many different places, lifestyles, hobbies, focuses but Wenatchee gives off a real sense of a community that has one thing in common, love for the outdoors.

I began working at the Wenatchee BLM office almost two weeks ago now. There is one other intern from CBG in the same position as me. We’re actually living together to make things easier and we have the same name to make things easier. So far we have been in training mostly. Completing courses required by the DOI and reading up on the local flora and fauna. For our position we will mostly be working in areas burned in wildfires the last few years. Being on the east side of the Cascades the atmosphere is very dry after dropping all its moisture on the west side while heading over the mountains. Because of this, the area is particularly susceptible to wildfires. Restoration efforts are made on BLM after these occurrences and our job is to monitor them and collect data. On our second day we took a drive to a burned area up the river we’ll be working in. It was pretty barren with some scattered blackened woody debris. However, a closer look reveals life. Vegetation has begun to sprout, some from seeds put there by the BLM others from surrounding vegetation. Next, we drove up and out of the valley a ways to Greater Sage Grouse habitat, another species we’ll be working on. It was unbelievable, once you’re out of the valley it’s completely flat agricultural lands with intermittent sage brush habitat for many miles. The Cascades can be seen in the background but you would never know that there’s a huge valley when looking with the naked eye from the flat lands above. It was a really neat experience. Head 20 miles in any direction from Wenatchee and the terrain completely changes.

My other half….for this position

Examining the riparian vegetation

The McCartney Creek canyon

This past week we have mostly stayed in the office learning about the surrounding area as well as the basics on ArcPad. We went out into the field again this past Tuesday to a place called McCartney Creek that’s located in another valley you wouldn’t know was there to shadow a coworker looking at the stream behavior. It became quite an ordeal after we couldn’t find a way into the canyon without putting ourselves in danger so the walk became an extensive hike around the canyon to find a way in. We learned a valuable lesson, perhaps know more about the area you’re trying to get to in the future. The next month includes three weeks of training in Prineville, Oregon and Reno, Nevada. Hopefully after that we’ll be set up to be on our own in the field every week!

Headed to McCartney Creek

Katherine

Bureau of Land Management

Wenatchee, WA

Although I arrived in Wenatchee, Washington for my CLM internship two weeks ago today, I still look around as I step outside every morning with a sense of wonder and excitement. The city is in a valley–to the east, across the glittering Columbia, are foothills and orchards quickly giving way to a rolling expanse of sagebrush steppe, while to the west looms the magnificent Cascade mountain range. Having lived in the Midwest my entire life, I’m overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the landscapes that surround me, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. It’s a different world here, and I love it already.

Despite the fact that we’ve been living in a motel for the past two weeks waiting for our apartment to become available, my fellow CLM intern and I have been settling in here effortlessly. Although larger than most places I’ve lived, the city has a small-town feel that makes it seem very homey to me. Most everyone we’ve met here has been friendly, and they all seem to have a suggestion of a trail we need to hike, a restaurant we need to try, or a town we need to explore. I don’t think we’ll ever run out of recreational opportunities!

Since both of us are new to the area, Katherine (my fellow intern) and I have been working hard to learn the flora and fauna of the sagebrush steppe. So far, most of our work days have been spent in the local BLM office, completing various training requirements, studying field guides, reading up on fire ecology, and learning to use ArcMap and ArcPad, which will be vital to our upcoming fieldwork. We’ve had three days in the field so far, shadowing our supervisors and learning to navigate to various study sites on some of the roughest roads I’ve ever driven! We’ve had some exciting wildlife sightings so far–on our first day out, we saw a sage grouse AND two golden eagles! We also learned how long it can take simply to arrive at a site. Earlier this week, we traveled to a place called McCartney Creek to help collect data on the riparian system. The creek was located in a canyon, and simply finding a safe route down took almost an hour! I never imagined that there would be so much topography to navigate in the sagebrush steppe, but I’m learning quickly that this place is full of surprises.

April is already shaping up to be a busy month. Today, Katherine and I are finally moving into our apartment! Hooray! I’m not sure what I’m more excited for–having a kitchen or having my own bedroom! However, we won’t have long to enjoy it. Next week, we’re traveling to Prineville, Oregon for a GeoBOB (Geographic Biotic Observation) training course. The week after we’ll be in Wenatchee, but then we’ll be back on the road, first to an AIM (Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring) training in Prineville and then to a Rangeland Health course in Reno, Nevada. Hotels are really starting to feel like home!

We hiked up to Saddle Rock our first weekend here. Gorgeous!

View of McCartney Creek from the top of the canyon

Katherine takes a GPS point

We found this cow skull in the creek–so cool!

Home sweet home these past 2 weeks!

Katherine Schneider. Bureau of Land Management, Wenatchee, WA.

Greetings, readers, from the Mojave of California!

Palo verde blooming in Whipple Wash

Hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus engelmanii)

How cute is Coryphantha chlorantha?!

Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia)

Our mentor, Lara Kobelt, pointing out the trail to Sierra Club members.

When asked to conjure up a scene of natural beauty and serenity, the go-to image for a lot of folks I know – including myself from a not so distant past – is a lushly vegetated vista. Maybe it’s psychological, or linked to some evolutionary hard-wiring. After all, lots of green, lots of wet, lots of resources. Or at the very least a good place to string up a hammock.

Moving to Central Oregon’s “high desert” – in quotation marks because many areas around here are actually semi-arid and get a touch more than ten inches of rain a year – has, for me, added some third party intrigue to the marital suite shared by lushness and beauty. First of all, photos of the sagebrush-steppe around here don’t always do them much justice. It’s hard to capture the emotive vastness and calmness of being out there. It can also be easy to wash out the soft shades of the forest-gray of the Artemisia with its reddish-brown to tawny inflorescence skeletons; the mint-gray of the rabbitbrush (a sure sign of disturbance and/or overgrazing) with its yellow star-like flower remains; the deep blue of the buttes and mountains that line the distant horizon from nearly every direction; the little pops of near neon orange, yellow and green on volcanic rock formations; and yes, the more vibrant greens of the new shoots of bunchgrasses and forbs screaming hey! Look at me! Under your foot, ya oaf! Spring is here!

Secondly, there’s a lot of narrative going on here in this ecosystem, and there isn’t a thing this girl loves more than some natural history. A strapping tale of over-grazing, water-suckin’ (although native) western juniper creeping into shrub-steppe lands due to fire exclusion, noxious invasives at every turn – with our protagonists, the native bunchgrasses and forbs, trying to push back against all odds with the help of their buds at the BLM and SOS! Or something like that. (I’ve got a whole season to work on all the nuances.)

I’ve only been here for two weeks as of this post, so most of the work my fellow SOS intern and I have been doing with the Prineville BLM has revolved around training, learning about the plants we should try to collect this year, scouting some of the sites recommended to us from last year’s SOS intern, and miscellaneous opportunities like leading some kids in a native seed sowing day and checking out some sensitive species populations. It’s still early so many of the plants are still just popping out of the ground, but there’s some early flowers – like Ranunculus glaberrimus var. glaberrimus (sagebrush buttercup) and Lomatium spp. (biscuitroot).

Caught in a surprise burst of snow on a muddy drive.

Little tiny Draba verna!

Some Ranunculus glaberrimus var. glaberrimus leading the way for spring.

Hikin’ around beautiful Smith Rock.

Likin’ the lichen.