One thing that I have yet to mention, that is kind of a large part of my job, is the tending of a milkweed production garden. I don’t have a picture of the whole thing, but it’s massive! It hosts I believe 3 different kinds of milkweed, and has around 50 plants. It was planted last year in an effort to get more milkweeds out into the Ouachitas for obvious monarch reasons. But….we have a bug infestation! I hate using that word because in the picture below you will find the milkweed bug. This bug along with aphids, assassin bugs, and of course the pollinators are all insects that belong in the ecosystem of the milkweed. Infestation implies something negative, and in this case I guess it is, too many milkweed bugs=no seeds, but I wish there was a better way to talk about it.

Not sure why the file was corrupted, but I quite like the outcome

This production garden is basically a mono culture: the bugs can easily find it, aren’t tempted by other nearby plants, and have unlimited resources to sustain them. Only in these kind of ecosystems do bugs really start to become a “problem”. This situation reminds me of an article I read in my tropical ecology class by Dr. Altieri. He says that if you start considering pests a problem, you aren’t viewing agriculture as an ecosystem, which is what it is. This has got me thinking about why this garden was designed the way that it was. It would have been beneficial to everyone if other native plants were grown at the same time. Not all my pods would be destroyed like they seem they may be soon if I don’t do something about it.

I wrote this a couple weeks back and in the meantime I’ve: gotten all the pods I can out of the production garden, the milkweed is starting to ‘die’ for the season, and I’ve started planting some other plants in the garden! I weeded the garden at the beginning of the season and all the weeds are back. I wish I could have kept up with it the whole summer but summer highs of 95, and sometimes above, made that a little difficult. I hope that next year someone who goes out to the seed orchard every other day will be able to check on the milkweed that way no pods will be lost to the wind. Because my office is 45 minutes away from the production garden it just made it difficult to effectively tend to the garden, especially because often there wasn’t anything else for me to do out there. This meant that going to check on the pods was a 2 hour endeavor that often ended up empty handed. At the beginning of the season there were plenty of seeds of other plants to collect in between the pine trees at the orchard but the mowers got a little excited and mowed down a lot of my flowers…Hopefully by the end of the season there will be some more seeds to collect out there.

Kind of off topic but about farming

I’ve always been a gardener but I’ve never owned my own. All through college I would volunteer at urban farms in New Orleans but I always felt that I wasn’t in a permanent place enough to start my own. I realize now that was silly because I planted some plants in pots up here in Arkansas. I guess I was inspired by the milkweed garden…

I’ve been reading the book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. In this book one whole section is about rice cultivation. He talks about how rice is super finicky and could never be grown in the super industrialized way that corn and soy beans are. He stresses the importance of time and strenuous labor involved in the trade. With rice, the more time you put in, the more money you make. This isn’t true with something like corn where you can substitute time with chemicals. I really liked this section of the book because it goes to show that you can’t innovate your way out of every problem. This is why gardening has always appealed to me. The work that you put in leaves you with a tangible product. And this is why tending to the milkweed garden has been difficult! The way it was designed doesn’t leave me hopeful about the product. I just hope that next year the seeds I’ve planted come up and lead to a garden that is modeled after an ecosystem.

Of course the dilemma of the gardener is that you want ALL the product and don’t want any to go to the insects but sometimes the sacrifice is necessary! As a gardener, you are the one who is disrupting the normal system, you can’t expect nature to not give you some bit of a hard time. 

Ok, one more tangent. Before I started working for the Forest Service I didn’t realize that our nations forests are basically large pine tree (and other tree) production fields. Most of the work that people do in the office has to do with managing this land to make sure the production of pine trees is maximized. Hence why the forest service is part of the Department of Agriculture. It’s crazy though how differently the forests are managed as opposed to crop fields. It seems to come easily to foresters that the maintenance of the natural ecosystem of a forest is important but when you move to growing corn, that mentality is lost? I understand why. Pine trees were there to begin with, the foresters are just managing them. But where the corn is, there also used to be an ecosystem. Maybe short term it wouldn’t be as productive to try and keep some of the aspects of that original ecosystem. But long term, it would be really beneficial! Especially because letting the land lay fallow to regenerate wouldn’t take as much time, but much of the original plants would already be around! Anyways, just a tangent about how farmers need to be more like foresters (who are also just farmers). 

I have 4 more weeks here in Arkansas! So the next blog post will be the last one.

Altieri, “Agroecology: principles and strategies for designing sustainable farming systems.” http://www.agroeco.org/doc/new_docs/Agroeco_principles.pdf

Rachel

Ouachita National Forest

The end of my CLM Internship is quickly approaching. With only three weeks left, all summer projects are drawing to a close. It’s incredible to see how much my confidence and knowledge has grown over the past four months in the field of forestry.

As I write this blogpost, I’m participating in my Alternative Training Opportunity. Due to fieldwork requirements in Casper, I was unable to attend the training put on by the Chicago Botanical Gardens. Fortunately, the Society of American Foresters has their annual meeting in the fall. As fieldwork slows down, I was able to spend a week and travel to Portland to meet with foresters and leaders in the industry from around the country.

This opportunity has giving me a wonderful pathway to network with a vast variety of individuals. I’ve been able to chat with fellow foresters, well established in the private sector, federal agency, or state department where they work. I’ve met timber consultants, small timber forest owners, policy makers, and professors conducting research related to forestry and forest ecology. It has been an incredible tool to begin to think about my next step following the CLM internship.

Additionally, I’ve had the chance to attend countless science and technology lectures, as well as discussion panels on a variety of forestry topics. I’ve heard about the complexities of conveying academic research to the forest industry as well as the general public, panels on how to manage the forests before the costly wildfires devastate the land, and a quantified analysis of the damage black bears do to privately owned timber stands. Quite the diverse range of topics in a short period of time, and I’ve still got two more days of the convention!

It’s sad to see my time as a CLM Intern drawing to a close. Fortunately, it is merely the start of a new phase in my life. I’ve been very lucky to gain the strong foundation and on the ground experiences I have as an intern. I am excited at the prospects of what is to come, and will always cherish my experience as an intern.

It’s that time of year again: change is everywhere. From the weather to the flora and fauna to the people, everyone and everything is gearing up for the sun to change positions on the horizon. After 15+ years of school, I’m used to fall being hectic; this time of year always means starting a new chapter with a schedule that has you buzzing around like a bee. However, working seasonally adds a whole new level of chaotic uncertainty. My days aren’t done when I’m off the clock; my evenings are filled with job hunting, resume writing, apartment hunting, packing all my stuff up (again), cleaning. I have to remind myself that this is the reality of freedom. I wanted to work seasonally so I could live and work in a multitude of places while I figure out which ecosystems I’d like to study in the future, and with that freedom comes the drag of job hunting and moving everything I own multiple times a year. When I look at it like that, I can’t be anything but thankful for my situation. I’m so lucky to be able to explore the country doing work I love, and I know I’ll look back on this time with gratitude that I let myself float around like a seed blowing in the wind before I put my roots down.

Hi everyone,

It has now been a little over two months since I have started my internship, and I have had so many opportunities that I had not expected. One amazing experience was a conference I was able to attend the first weekend of September with the Native Plant Society of New Mexico (NPSNM).

Sitting near the base of the Gila National Forest is the quaint town of Silver City. This is where Lucy (the other SOS intern) and I got to spend our three-day weekend presenting posters for the conference. The relaxed nature of the NPSNM made it easy to talk about something I am very passionate about: conservation. My poster outlined the different effects of the oil and gas industry, which has been booming in our resource area. Although all land use changes can cause numerous negative side effects on the surrounding landscape, it is easy to see that the presence of “pumpjack forests” has begun serious degradation to the habitats around them. Aside from the obvious destruction to the land, these oil fields can also cause wildlife poisoning, air pollution, and even change the hydrology of an area. This is why environmental education for this industry, and many others, is so important.

Poster for the Native Plant Society of New Mexico conference.

An amazing double rainbow in the Gila National Forest.

One of the three field trips taken during the conference. This trip was to look at the restoration efforts of an old ranch in the Gila National Forest.

Who doesn’t love a baby Horned Lizard!

Me (left) and Lucy (right)

In other news, the monsoon season is still in full swing here in the Chihuahuan desert. Many new plant faces are starting to appear, which means we will be very busy for the next few months! I still continue to be astonished by the concept of rain in the desert… Especially when the temperature can drop from the normal 80°-100°F range to a chilly 50°-60°F range due to this rain. Needless to say, I spent this last week with frozen toes, nose, and fingers while traipsing around collecting our precious seeds.

An example of storms in the desert. (No worries, I was not driving in this picture)

(Again, I was not driving)

Look close! The desert can hold the tiniest of little treasures.

Just another tiny treasure.

Best,

Caitie

Carlsbad Field Office, Bureau of Land Management

What with seed collection being pretty much done, we have been doing a hodge podge list of things around the Rawlins Field Office with various departments. One of my favorite projects has been our work with the noxious weeds department. We were sent to Bennett Peak to check on areas where people have long since sprayed for weeds. After reviewing the state noxious plant list and going over the map, Chloe and I set out for Bennett peak with a list of GPS coordinates and a camera in hand.

We searched for populations of Musk Thistle and Leafy Spurge– sometimes we found a flourishing population of invasive weeds and sometimes we did not (which hopefully means that, because were sprayed long ago, the population is under control). We photographed all of the sites as evidence. We drove, hiked and climbed around this riverside area full of fishermen and campers to get to these sites. They all recognized us as noxious weeds people just from out packets of maps and coordinates.

Leafy Spurge taking over
PC: Chloe Battista

I thought a lot that day about the concept of weeds. Gardeners will call anything undesirable in their plot a weed. This could be a native plant that is just considered “useless” or “ugly”. Meanwhile, I would use the word weed to describe an invasive plant taking over an environment. These are undesirable because of the harm they do to the ecosystem– either by taking up space and nutrients from once biodiverse areas, replacing them with monocultures, or making the area otherwise uninhabitable by native organisms. They could be pleasant in appearance, like Leafy Spurge or Oxeye Daisy, but that does not particularly matter. BLM sprays for them in hopes of fighting back against them. If they are able to keep up with it regularly, it just might work. It is interesting how we apply undesirability and desirability to nature depending on our goal.

Some invasives can be pretty, but this thistle still needs to be destroyed.
PC: Chloe Battista

Today – my last day of work – is one of the rare days that I am sitting inside at a desk.  I sat down to write a fitting conclusion to the last five months, which is every bit as difficult as it sounds.  I decided to start by making a graph.  To anyone who knows me well, this would come as no surprise – my background is in quantitative biology, and I am a big nerd about data visualization.  As silly as it sounds, I wanted to answer the question: what exactly have I been doing for five months?

In short, I have been treating weeds and collecting seeds.  I have learned this summer that the hard work of creating and managing healthy ecosystems requires dedicated people on the ground doing work that – if I am being honest – can often by repetitive and tedious.  However, I have gained some valuable skills during this process: plant identification, navigating and recording data with a handheld GPS, and herbicide application, to name a few.  I even got to help mark trees for a timber sale (in case you were wondering what went under that “other” category).  In addition, I got to spend my days in some truly beautiful places.

While collecting seed from Physocarpus capitatum, or Pacific ninebark, we came across this wonderful, quiet section of the North Umpqua River.

Another beautiful vista while on the hunt for some native seed.

It may be burned, but in the year since the Horse Prairie fire this forest has regained a lot of life and beauty.

Spending all of my time outdoors gave me a greater appreciation for the conservation work that I am doing alongside so many other interns, volunteers, and professionals past and present.  As often as I found myself in tedium, I also found myself reflective and immensely satisfied to be a part of something much bigger than my small efforts.  That kind of perspective helped me stay patient with some of my more unexciting tasks, like pulling out false brome or driving all day to search for native plant populations.

I moved out to Oregon after graduating from college with two goals in mind: I wanted to refine my research interests before I committed to a graduate program and gain experience working with a federal agency.  I have really enjoyed working with such dedicated and good-natured people here in the Roseburg office, and I will be sad to leave the BLM – for the time being, anyway.  I would certainly like to work with a federal agency again after my experience here.  As for my research interests, I have a much better idea of what I want to study going forward, and I am currently in the process of talking to potential advisors and applying to graduate schools.  Working on BLM land has gotten me interested in the ways that changes in landscapes – particularly human driven land use changes – drive community composition and overall ecosystem stability, and I want to apply ecological data analysis and modelling tools to explore this.  I hope that I will soon be pursuing my Master’s and doing research along those lines.

I am grateful for the opportunities I had to explore Oregon and contribute to conservation efforts out here.  Although I am ready to move on and get back to school, I certainly will not forget the valuable experiences and new skills that I have gained.  Now, before it starts raining again, it is time for me to leave the Pacific Northwest.  Until next time!

Our Botany team at the Roseburg District BLM.

There were a lot of new experiences for me during this internship with a few common themes from previous jobs that I have worked. Some of the new experiences include learning new flora of the Pacific Northwest, using keys to identify plants, and conducting rare plant surveys. One theme that was again present for me this year is that the battle against invasive species is always an uphill battle. It can be hard to see the difference you are making especially when you will not be able to see the effect of your hard work the next year. Depending on the level of infestation, it can be really difficult for one or two people to treat an area, even with using herbicide. It is important when doing this type of work to make small goals for yourself and to treat areas where you can get the most bang for your buck. This way you can make a bigger impact and also feel good about the work that you are doing. I have been working on lots of weed treatment projects the past month from pulling/spraying false brome, spraying blackberry, lopping one-seeded hawthorne, and spraying Canada thistle. It would be an understatement to say that this month has flown by.

A patch of blackberry that I sprayed one week prior. It is already started to die back a little bit which made me feel good.

A patch of milk thistle that I sprayed one week prior as well. As you can see it is mostly dead and I wanted to do a follow up to make sure it all dies before it seeds next year.

Cat’s face spider

While I was cutting some hawthorne down with handsaws this week, I felt something crawling on my neck. Not thinking anything of it I brushed it away with my hand. A few seconds later I felt something crawling on my neck again and I swatted it off me this time. This spider flew off and landing on this leaf. I was paranoid the rest of the day. It was kind of a cool looking spider but I just did not want it crawling on me. I think it may be a cat’s face spider or some other type of orb weaver.

Overall, I would say the internship was a success for me and I really enjoyed my time working here in Oregon. I learned a lot of new things and invasive species in Oregon have certainly piqued my interest. Although I am moving back home for now, I am not crossing Oregon off the list of places I would want to live and work again.

Botany Staff at Roseburg District BLM

Signing off now.

-Will Farhat (Botany Intern at Roseburg District BLM)

Verbesina enceloides collecting

Well, at this point in the year, many other CLM interns are wrapping up their internship. However here in the Chihuahuan Desert, our seed season is just beginning to ramp up. Usually the desert has a monsoon season with heavy rains in the summer, but this year the monsoons came in August, which is later than normal. We were able to watch the desert transform practically overnight from the dry, dusty landscape to bursts of blooms. In particular, we have been seeing a TON of Verbesina enceloides. We were also able to make some other fun collections this month like Chilopsis linearis (Desert willow), Gaillardia pinnatafida, and Thelsperma megapotacium.

Desert Willow collection site with the Guadalupe Mountains in the background

Luckily these collections were in beautiful locations in the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains! The grasses around here like Aristida purpurea, Bouteloua curtipendula, Setaria leucopia, and Sporobolus airoides have been seeding lately as well.

Me next to my poster at the New Mexico Native Plants Converence

Earlier this month, we were able to attend the New Mexico Native Plant Society Conference in Silver City, NM. This was a weekend of fun, learning, and meeting lots of people who care deeply about the environment and native plants. We were able to present posters about some of our projects as Seeds of Success interns during the informational sessions. There were also field trips where we were able to see more of southwest New Mexico. Silver City is located conveniently close to the Gila National Forest and City of Rocks State Park, which were full of diverse plant species – and some I recognized from the Chihuahuan desert!

City of Rocks State Park

Another highlight of the trip was getting to meet our peers working in different Seeds of Success programs around the state.

Rainbow over the Gila to close out the first night of the conference!

We are now about half way through our internship, so I’m excited to see what these next couple of months in Carlsbad have in store for us!

-LMS

Carlsbad Field Office, Bureau of Land Management

As my internship starts to really wind down (only four more weeks left, where did the time go!?), I have been reflecting on how far I’ve come over the years. This isn’t my first rodeo, as some would say. After graduating with my bachelor’s degree back in 2012 I really didn’t have much of an idea about what I wanted to do. I was too focused on finishing school to plan much further. I didn’t even know field biology was an option until an ecology instructor mentioned her work as a contractor surveying endangered and threatened species in the bay area. I remember thinking, “wait, I can find a job working outside? Cool!” I really had no idea what I was getting into.

And so I have worked many seasonal field positions over the years. I started out wanting to work with wildlife and soon realized plants are way cooler (and they don’t move, hence surveys at ungodly hours are not required!). It took a year or two to be able to secure work during the off season (other winters I did restaurant work and worked at my local ski area or traveled with whatever savings I had accumulated, volunteering while traveling makes this much more feasible). Each year the position lasted a little longer and paid a little better. Each year I learned more and made some great contacts. This accumulation of experience and contacts eventually led me to graduate school (Plant Biology and Conservation program at Northwestern and our favorite place the Chicago Botanic Gardens) and then to this internship, which is part of my graduate program requirements.

This internship has been an excellent experience to apply my past experience in the field and the knowledge I gained in school. While most of my previous experience has been in vegetation surveying, this position helped me to learn a lot about rare plant monitoring. On top of the expected duties of interns in the rare plant monitoring program I also worked on independent projects.

One project, which will also be part of my graduation requirements for my master’s degree, has been species distribution modeling, a skill I acquired during my graduate course work. Using MaxEnt, I modeled current and future predicted ranges for Sclerocactus glaucus, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This species is up for re-evaluation of status, so my mentor is working on supplying the US Fish & Wildlife Services with information related to the species. It’s been really fulfilling to be able to utilize the skills I acquired in grad school to this project, like researching peer-reviewed articles, running models (with the help of Arcmap) and technical writing. I’m excited that my report will be included in the official report provided to USFWS.

I’ve also been working on habitat assessments for Sclerocactus glaucus using data from the BLM AIM (Assessment Inventory Monitoring) program. As much of my field experience has been with this program, is was really cool to be able to use the data.

As I finish up here I am happy to report that I will be working again shortly. I have been offered a permanent (well long term contract anyways) full time job here in the Denver area. I’m excited to have finally gained more permanent employment, though I will miss being in the field a lot! While this job is mostly office work, it is within the realm of field biology and I know I will learn a lot. This really is a big transition for me! I haven’t lived anywhere longer than 1 year since 2012. It will be really nice but also a little weird for me to not be moving around constantly. But I think it is time for me to settle down and pass the torch along.

For all you out there just starting out, have patience and enjoy this time. Every position offers you the opportunity to learn and gain experience and make new friends and great contacts. To be honest, I haven’t had to interview for a job in years. Once you establish yourself as a hardworking, helpful, intelligent individual people will look out for you. They will offer you jobs or recommend you to other people. Be open to positions that you might not think are that great. My first paid field position wasn’t something I thought would be cool. I figured I would stick it out and get the experience. It turned out to be a great experience where I made great friends and started making good contacts. On the contrary, the positions I was most excited for turned out to be less than ideal.

I know I will miss the excitement of figuring out what my next adventure will be. I will miss the adventure of moving somewhere new, remote and wild. I will miss the adventure of making new friends in desolate places. I will miss living in crazy, middle of no-where places where you can see the milky way from your backyard. I will miss camping in the middle of nowhere with my crew, just finding a decent enough spot off a dirt road to park the truck and pitch your tent. I will miss the long, hot, dusty days in the field finding cool rocks and getting real intimate with all those plants out there. Long story short there is a lot I will miss!

But I’m excited for my next adventure, one that delves into realms I have yet to experience. I am ready to “level up.” I am excited for all of you too! Happy Adventures and Good LUCK!