I am over half way through my time here at the BLM in Baker City. There is rhythm to our team as field sites and protocols become familiar. Stream channel assessments have changed up the routine a bit though with new techniques like plant identification!

We started off by attending training on multiple indicator monitoring (known hereafter as MIM) for riparian systems. The focus of MIM is quantifying the impacts of grazing on streams from bank stability to plant composition. The training brought people from a variety of backgrounds from range management to geo engineering. MIM has a holistic approach, attempting to account for all forms alterations. While alterations are examined individually, their potential relationships are examined in the final analysis. In the field, we discussed these connections as we practiced the methods of MIM. I found it intriguing to examine the morphology of streams as well as riparian vegetation.

Conducting MIMs on our own sites has been a real eye opener. Our first stream was in poor condition with highly eroding banks and little plant biomass left after cattle are taken off. It is shocking and disheartening to hear from my mentor how difficult it can be to have the grazing reduced on such allotments. It is a consequence of a working landscape. Ranchers often depend on free range grazing in the summer and cannot feed the cattle sufficiently otherwise. However, the impairment of these valuable ecosystems is gaining notice as evident by the growing importance of MIM in BLM.

I often find myself struggling with the complex and seemingly conflictingly commitments of the BLM. The reconciliation of conservation and resource utilization has been a subject of many a class or book of mine, yet the challenges are something I feel I am only beginning to grasp. It is easy to ignore when sites are part of large swaths of conserved land like some of our streams (see below), but it is evident in these highly degraded streams that there is still much to be done.

Hi,

It’s Michal at the Lockeford PMC, NRCS. Just a quick update this time. July has been a very busy month — I’ve been trying to get everything locked down for this restoration project I’m carrying out. After we finally got our brushcutter, Jeff and I set off to start clearing the blackberry thicket (Rubus armeniacus) that I wrote about last time. And boy oh boy, let me tell you that it’s not very fun, but very satisfying when you see progress being made.

Levee before cutting

Levee after cutting

It may not look like it, but much of the thicket is over 5ft tall so it took quite a bit of effort and patience to get through it all. To complicate things, there are a lot of heavy branches hidden between the canes to avoid.

How I feel before cutting blackberries

How I feel 2 hours into cutting blackberries

We also spent a week clearing willows, which we will mulch back into the clearing as fertilizer and to retain soil moisture. We were careful to pile any walnuts into a non-mulch pile, as walnuts (Juglans sp) contain juglone, an allelopathic compound. The next step is to spray a pre-emergent herbicide to prepare the site, all the meanwhile allowing the blackberries to foliate again so we can herbicide them in the fall when they are translocating nutrients to the roots and are most vulnerable.

I have also been writing the USDA Plant Guide for California mugwort (Artemisia douglasiana). Because it is such an important plant to Native Californians, not only medicinally but also spiritually, I put a lot of effort into my research to make sure I do it justice. When it gets published, I’ll update everyone and post the link so you guys can check it out.

I hope everyone is learning a lot and doing well!

Michal

USDA-NRCS, Lockeford, California.

Orange mound formations Badlands

The second month in the Black Hills has been very eventful. After one of the wettest early summers on record the Hills are still lush and green, very different than normal. In the office I hear people commenting on how streams are still running as well as the lack of fire ban. The lack of fire ban is one thing that has been great.  Where I am staying there is a fire pit, so my roommates and I have been grilling and roasting marshmallows often.

The projects that my coworker and I have been working on are finally progressing. The fuels-wildlife project is done save a final walk-through, and let me say I am happy it is over. The work has yet to be scheduled, but will probably be completed next spring. What we are trying to do is improve mule deer winter forage range by removing ponderosa pine to release mountain mahogany. At the same time we are creating a meadow area on the flatter areas. When we were lying out and designing the different areas we ran into problems that I had never thought about much before. While some areas are better off on paper as mountain mahogany, the logistics of getting men and machine in to do the work prohibits its inclusion into the project. There are some areas that are over 120˚ slopes with loose shale “soil”, these areas while in need of management will not be included.

The other project for this summer is a timber sale.  One nice thing about the BLM is that the timber sales are mainly about improving the health of the forest. The timber sale is on approximately 250 acres, however there are some areas that are canyons and will not be touched. It is these areas that some massive old ponderosa pine coexists next to an aspen stand, chokecherry, and the only oak in the Hills, bur oak. Being able to explore and see things that most people won’t is one of the hidden gems of this type of internship.
But it has not been all work and no play in the Black Hills, I am constantly amazed at what there is to do here. Some of them are amazing, others are pure tourist’s traps. One of the surprising finds is Custer State Park, this place has it all. They have one of the largest bison herds, elk, pronghorn, deer and a prairie dog town. There are also two very scary roads with amazing views of unique geologic landforms. What makes these roads scary are that they are so narrow there is not even a center line, along with almost constant blind turns and four single car tunnels. But it was worth it. The other CLM intern and I also went for a weekend trip to Badlands National Park, all I can say is that it is a great place to visit if you have the chance, just don’t feed the prairie dogs, they have plague! Our first night we were treated to an amazing lightning show, until it started pouring on us. It rained off and on all night, but my tent kept me dry. Looking forward to what the rest of the summer holds.

Trees in the Badlands!

Badlands Vista

Badlands Pinnacles

Badlands Drive

The last month (or two…) kept me very busy. I met new people, gained new skills, witnessed world cup soccer, and the seeds just keep coming!

Hope Solo defending the US goal against Japan in the World Cup Final. Yep, I took that photo from my seat at the game in Vancouver, BC!

While I usually spend most of my time in the field alone, my last two trips brought fresh faces to the campground. Olga Kildisheva, a grad student at the University of Western Australia, spent a few days in the field collecting for seed dormancy studies she’s working on. She has collected in the Vale district as well, but I’m hoping she spends a couple more days on Steens Mountain with me in the future. A long day of seed collecting through bugs and heat isn’t so bad when you have a buddy to joke about your shared PTSD from the buzzing of flies and mosquitoes. She urged me to write a food blog with photographs of what I’m eating in the field (look for it on the CLM blog next month!). Apparently she was impressed with my camping snacks.

Olga investigating… something…
Polygonum bistortoides with pollinator in the foreground

Despite working alone most of the time, this internship has been a great opportunity to network with a diverse array of like-minded folks.  I helped lead a Native Plant Society of Oregon hike on Steens Mountain with a retired BLM botanist from the area. Walking around my field site with someone who spent 30+ years identifying its flora was a real treat. It also gave me a boost of confidence; working alone, I have no one to tell me if I’ve identified the plants correctly but, now I know I’m doing it right! Most of the hikers drove in from Portland or Bend and camped on the mountain. I was lucky enough to share my campfire and my inner tube for floating on the campground lake with the NPSO Portland chapter’s president. She told me of federal botanists working in Oregon and how best to go about working for them in the future. Meeting other plant enthusiasts and networking with professionals while looking at flowers has been the highlight of my field season so far.

White-crowned sparrow nest spotted on the NPSO plant hike

Getting to know the grasses (all by myself!)

Flowers are a mere highlight, seeds are the real deal. Collecting seeds, missing seeds, finding new seeds ─ sharp seeds, itchy hair seeds, buggy seeds, jumping seeds. I am learning how seed collecting can be an exciting adventure. The toughest lesson so far, is learning how to slow down even though the seeds aren’t going to wait for me. I take 10 day trips to the field with 10 days in Portland in between, so if I don’t make time to collect a population that is ripe on one trip it will likely disperse before I return. This fact sent me into a dizzying whirlwind of 12 hour days the beginning of July. The flowers are easy to collect, seeds can take all day. Although this sense of urgency continues to haunt me, I realize I will never be able to collect ALL the seeds (no matter how badly I’d like to). So, I now make it a rule that I return to camp in time for a swim before dinner and begin where I left off the next morning.

Where I work is beautiful.
Little Blitzen Gorge, Steens Mountain.

The best advice I’ve received: “Don’t forget to have fun” -Retired BLM botanist, Rick Hall

The month of July has been a very full month! My partner, Erin, and I have been splitting our time between collecting data for an on-going vegetation production study and SOS collections, both of which are time sensitive projects.

Our SOS collections have been focused primarily on key pollinator and sage grouse forbs, as well as a couple grasses and antelope bitterbrush. Even though we started with 16 vouchers of specimens that we had the potential to collect seed from, the reality will be that the final number of seed collections we make this season will be much smaller. I’ve learned this month how unpredictable and time-consuming the process of locating and monitoring a potential collection can be. I don’t mean these adjectives in a particularly negative sense, but I’ve had my eyes opened to some of the basic hurdles a seed collection program such as SOS must face. As we’ve monitored species, trying to predict the dates of prime seed readiness, many of the seed populations have gotten swept away or chomped to dust by wind and insects. Managing our time for two projects also meant that some of our seed was ready for us before we had the time to snatch it up.

In light of this, we are proud and excited to have completed our first few collections this month with the help of the Montana Conservation Corps crew that came to assist us from the Wind River Reservation. We were fortunate enough to have their help for two days collecting seed just outside of the Red Canyon Wildlife Management Area. We are hoping August will bring several more successful collections!

When we are not busy collecting SOS seed, our other task has been to gather data about the annual vegetative production of rangeland across the field office and make comparisons between grazed and ungrazed rangeland. Each study site we visit has an exclosure that has been preventing cattle from grazing these small sections of land for many years now, which allows the grass and other plants to proliferate (hypothetically) as the rest of the land would if cattle were not present. Our job is to collect data about the cover by species and production by species weight for plots placed inside and outside the exclosure. Part of this process is clipping small circular plots, dividing and bagging species separately and then weighing them. Today we finished our tenth and final study location and are excited to see what new projects August will bring!

After a very productive week in the NC OBX, the team returned to Chapel Hill for seed cleaning, debriefing, and planning. Our greatest feat was collected over 10,000 Prunus serotina seeds at Currituck Banks!

To take break from the seed room, we would help monitor some of NCBG’s properties while we studied up on our species list. But it’s North Carolina and we get a lot of flash rain showers…

After a week in Chapel Hill, we were ready to get back into the field. We planned out a trip up to Virginia and Maryland with five sites in mind. However, we found that seed production is experiencing a weird hiatus where some species are done producing, while others aren’t ready to be collected! We still got to see some awesome scenery and wildlife: a rafter of turkeys and a pair of bald eagles. Sadly, we saw no black bears this trip.

Until next time!

13 July 2015
The rains have started and the desert is popping!  The northern tip of the Chihuahuan Desert never does get very much rain, but we have seen pretty consistent (if you can call once+ a month consistent) rainfall here since November, 2014. There are plants I have never seen before; mostly because these seeds require winter rains and this is the first time in a long time that it has rained through the winter. The penstemons in my yard are putting out their third set of buds and the hummingbirds are happy.

We learned the protocol for monitoring the Peniocereus gregii var. gregii. These populations were last monitored in December 2013 by the Chicago Botanic Garden Interns: Elisabeth Ward and Kate Wilkins. Here is kudos to them for a job well-done. We appreciate the hard work you did blazing that trail.

Well, the end of the second month is looming and the schedule is getting full. But, we have made a few seed collections and visited several potential populations… and the heat goes on.

Until next month: Have A Great Summer!
Jeanne Tenorio
BLM-LCDO

Salutations!

Since my last post, Carla and I have been going out on our own to finish up the last of the trend monitoring at our allotments. Idaho has been getting extremely hot, upwards of 100 degrees, so we’ve had to be extra careful not to get dehydrated or overheated. It’s been pretty challenging navigating often overgrown and un-maintained dirt roads with our GPS unit, which doesn’t have all the roads marked or always clearly identify canals…and some of the old site descriptions (it’s been more than 10 years since some of these sites have been monitored or updated) are just terrible!

Cow bones

Our last trend site at Muldoon Canyon

For example, we’ll get to a stream after 2 hours of driving on heinously rocky and steep dirt roads only to realize the next area to cross isn’t for another 5 slow miles, then get to the site and realize the directions written for the reference post are incorrect, or better yet, forget the directions in the car after hiking a couple miles out to the site. We’ve been aiming for 5 8’s a week and have unintentionally had 10-12 hour days due to navigation, bad roads, directions, etc. Adventure!!! There’s nothing like having a 12-hour day, almost getting locked out of the parking lot at work, and then having popsicles for dinner when you get home.

The views are often worth the misadventure!

But that’s the very worst of it and it doesn’t happen often at all. We’ve been extremely lucky and it’s always a rewarding learning experience.  We’ve finished our trend plots, haven’t had any flat tires (a miracle), and haven’t gotten lost (just misdirected…). I’ve been compiling a species/code list and handbook with pictures and descriptions and we have over 90 and counting that we’ve identified in the field.

Lunch after checking pastures for cows

Even though the number of plants we need to keep track of is overwhelming, it’s completely worth it for the scope of different ecosystems and diversity we’ve seen in our allotments from desert to mountain. In addition, we did our first seed collection for SOS of bottlebrush squirrel tail (Elymus elymoides) which was a nice change of pace. Our next project is Habitat Assessment Framework monitoring which is kind of like trend monitoring except focused more on habitat and forage for sage grouse (i.e. canopy cover, a focus on forbs, etc.).

Picking flowers at Muldoon Canyon

A suspicious sample of snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus)

To balance our long, dusty, hot days in the field I’ve been going out during the weekends and doing some exploring in Idaho. I was fortunate enough to have two friends from back home in Florida visit me within two weeks of each other. I met Adam, an avid traveler, about 3 years ago through the “Outdoor Adventure Recreation” (OAR) club in college. He visited after finishing a short-term job grading AP government papers in SLC. I took him to Perrine Bridge, Dierkes Lake, and we went kayaking down Snake River. It was really great to see him and take him on a couple adventures, since he’s led so many trips that I’ve been on.

Adam, courageously leaping to the icy waters of Dierkes

The following week my best friend Shabnam visited. She’s working at Bryce Canyon National Park through the Student Conservation Association and spontaneously found a ride through her boss for July 4th weekend! It was a huge surprise. I took her to the Perrine bridge (the only man-made structure in the world open all year round for jumpers without a permit) to watch some BASE jumpers and Dierkes Lake as well, but this time  Carla and our co-worker Logan came. We did some cliff diving at Dierkes and found Hidden Lake after some exploring. There were like thirty 8 year-olds jumping off some of the sketchiest cliffs I’ve ever seen. The kind you need a long running start to clear the rocks below you. It took me 30 minutes of knee-shaking anxiety and a motivational speech from Carla at one of the lowest cliffs at Dierkes to get me to jump.

Hidden Lake

We also went camping the next day with some other friends at a Thousand Springs where we had a campsite right along the Snake River. I brought a festive alligator noodle (go gators), my friend Guillaume brought an inflatable raft from Fred Meyers, and Shabnam brought her new double camping hammock. We saw some fireworks, floated on the river with our inflatables, hammocked, and the next morning Shabnam and I helped take pictures for a 4-generation family reunion that was camping next to us.

Shabnam & her beloved hammock

The following weekend I went camping again at Bear Lake. It’s about 4 hours away and spans the border of Idaho and Utah. The weather in Twin the Friday we left was pretty heinous with lightning, thunder, and hail. Actually the surrounding parks in general had terrible weather, but for some reason Bear Lake was left untouched that weekend. We got to our site pretty late but managed to cook some trout (“trweet” if you’re French) and did some stargazing at the lake. The next day we rented kayaks and jet skis and pretty much spent the whole day there. It was awesome! Definitely my favorite trip so far since I’ve been in Idaho. I plan on going back some time in August for “Raspberry Days”.

Kayaking at Bear Lake

Jet skis!!!!!

Bear Lake

We also found a poster for the summer rodeo in Garden City which was about 20 minutes away from our campsite. I watched for the first time mutton busting (5-year-olds riding angry sheep), barrel racing, bull riding, bronco riding, etc. For an arguably inhumane and somewhat sexist tradition, it was pretty entertaining! And now I can finally say “this isn’t my first rodeo”. And I got some pretty good pictures of some cowboys totally eating it.

This past weekend, I visited Boise for the first time and explored downtown as well as the World Center for Birds of Prey. We saw different kinds of eagles, vultures, and hawks and I purchased possibly the coolest bird-themed mug ever.

Some building in Boise

Last Sunday Carla, Chelsea (Jarbidge CBG intern), and I took a day trip to the Sawtooth Mountains. We were initially planning a camping trip but the weather turned sour at the last minute for Saturday. We checked out Galena Summit and hiked for a couple hours to Titus Lake. It was a steep climb but the views and blossoming wildflowers were completely worth it.

Galena Summit

Chelsea & Carla post-hike to Titus Lake

All in all, it’s been a wonderful month.

Until next time,

Diana.

BLM Shoshone, ID Field Office.