Through this internship, I have come to love the town of Lakeview and will truly miss it. However, it is becoming clear that it is time to depart and move on to my next adventure. As one of the last hangers-on after the fire crews, the high school and college seasonals, and most of the other seven CLM interns have filtered out of town, the smell of wood smoke and forecasts well below freezing are signaling the end of the season. I have seen more territory, learned more about land management, and gotten to know more interesting people than I ever thought possible.

Although I could go on and on about driving four-wheelers in the winter rain, watching helicopters drop flame retardant a mile away from town, and sneaking suspiciously away from Disney Princess balloons, I mostly want to use this final blog to express my extreme gratitude to the Chicago Botanic Garden for establishing this program. These days, it is next to impossible to find a paid professional job right out of college. Like countless other students, I was incredibly frustrated to discover that my tens of thousands of dollars and four years of nose-to-the-grindstone hard work meant nothing to employers scanning solely for “real” experience. The Chicago Botanic Garden stands among very few institutions that think out of the box and use a different method in their hiring practices. Thank you, CBG, for understanding our plight and establishing a program to smooth the transition from school to work. You are leaders in making the professional world accessible to recent graduates.

The CLM program offered me the most valuable thing one could ask for: that elusive professional experience. My work leaders were incredible about sending us out in the field with different crews and making sure we understood every aspect of our work. They explained what we did not know and sought our opinions on what we did know. We took pride in our data and felt that we became an indispensable part of the interdisciplinary team for evaluating rangeland health and writing Environmental Assessments. My resume seems to grow on a daily basis, filled with new skills and bragging rights.

Beyond experience and payment, everything else should have just been icing on the cake. Yet this internship came to mean so much more to me than just a job. I had an incredible time bonding with my partners in the field and my trailer-mates in our living quarters. I learned so much from this huge variety of people with such different backgrounds and knowledge to share. In the BLM office, just about everyone was incredibly nice and helpful. My first time living in a small town in the middle of nowhere was an extraordinary success. I will never forget the roaming animals, the gigantic stars, the stereotypical cowboys and the exceptional small town gossip. I only hope that my future employment experiences will be as fulfilling as this one.

November has arrived. I am now the only seasonal left in Modoc county… or at least that is how it feels, but I do not mind. Watching the snow begin to cover the tablelands and Warner Mountains is well worth the isolation. I must admit I began to panic when I realized I would not be enjoying the outdoors as often when the cold weather began, but I have still been able to have some field time. I travelled to nearby Cedarville to help the Surprise BLM fuels crew with a sage brush planting project and ended up helping lead the project. My partner Joe and I gave instructions for planting Purshia tridentata and Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana. We recommended planting them in clumps of 7 to 10 down from the ridgeline. The area we were planting in was located in western Nevada in the Lost Fire, which was ignited by lightning in August. The fire burned more than 61,000 acres including habitat for sage-grouse, mule deer, bighorn sheep and pronghorn.  Restoration planting will continue into December and I hope to be a part.

Here is a picture of the Lost Fire:

Lost Fire

My partner Joe and I enjoyed sending a huge collection of seeds in as well as labeling numerous herbarium vouchers for the Smithsonian and Berkley. Joe left at the beginning of the month and I am now the only seasonal left in the field office. Collecting seeds takes longer with only one pair of hands, but I was still able to make a couple more collections before the weather set in. I was able to make a fairly large collection of Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis. Artemisia arbuscula proved to be a harder collection presumably because of the drought this season. The total number of collections we were able to make this season was 37! Now that field work is mostly through, I have a couple of projects to work on in the office and look forward to getting better acquainted with ArcGIS. (:

… and then one day it started rainin. The rainy season has begun here in the California central valley. The fields have turned back to a familiar green color. The weather has still been very mild. Rainy days mixed with 60-70 degree sunny days. Being the intern here I have been assisting with all of the random odds and ends. There is never a shortage of work for me. My projects have included things like fencing closed sections of the preserve, seeding restoration areas, and guiding tours, among other things. Most recently I had the opportunity to work with school kids on a native shrub planting. The kids were a blast to work with, and hopefully these volunteer opportunities might spark an interest in conservation for one or more of them. Tomorrow morning we have staff meeting, followed by a presentation by a rattlesnake biologist, and in the afternoon I will be planting more native shrubs. I love this job.

With field season over, I am getting to join in with other members of the office in their field work and experience what a federal employee does. I got to see a wild horse round-up which was very interesting, and quite a procedure – helicopters and all! There is also lots of data organization and computer stuff to do, but that’s all part of working in a digital world. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The past few months have been quite hectic here at the Eagle Lake Field Office in Susanville, CA. In August, a wildfire ignited over 300,000 acres of our field office. As soon as the fire was declared contained, our office began working on the Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Plan for the fire. I put my CLM internship on hold and was hired by the BLM for two months to help work on this plan. There was an immediate need for detailed maps of the fire area so that the resource advisors could check out the aftermath and do their jobs more efficiently. I was thrown into ArcMap with only a little knowledge of the program and was forced to learn how to use it. This is a very effective way to learn a program quickly, and with the help of the other intern, I am now able to swiftly create good-lookin’ maps and run analyses on data in ArcMap.

Coming from the Midwest, I have no experience with wildfires at all. Susanville was blanketed in smoke for a month or two while the 300,000 acre Rush Fire as well as 2-3 other significant sized fires surrounded the town. Wildfires are definitely a humbling event and it was interesting to see everyone’s different reactions to them. Some of my co-workers were in tears over the damage that it was doing to the land, while others were rooting for it to burn more. Having experience using prescribed fires to manage resources in Indiana, my initial reaction was that the fire was a good thing and that the plants would bounce back quickly and with great vigor. I soon learned that there is a key issue that must be considered when a wildfire rages through the West: cheat grass.

I became familiar with cheat grass very quickly when I moved to California back in May. It’s everywhere; and where it’s a little more sparse, it’s always threatening to encroach on and crowd out the native bunch grasses and other native plant species. There is great fear that the burned areas that were once dense sagebrush habitat will turn completely to cheat grass, and will stay cheat grass. The invasive grass species has completely changed the fire regime for the sagebrush habitat so that fires occur more frequently. The native brush does not have a chance to establish itself before the next fire rolls through the cheat grass fields. You can easily pick out where past fires have occurred from the large patches of yellow in the landscape where nothing but cheat grass is growing. It is startling to look at the fire history data and see that the field of grass is the exact fire perimeter of a past wildfire.

This fire has opened my eyes to the severe need for native seed to be used for fire rehabilitation and the importance of the SOS program. Most of fire area did not burn that hot, so the roots of native grasses are still intact and have high potential to bounce back and successfully outcompete cheat grass. However, some areas got completely cooked and are more susceptible to cheat grass invasion because of the loss of the native seed bank. In these areas, seeding with native plant species is very beneficial to help keep out cheat grass. The SOS program is an excellent way to ensure that there is enough seed available for fire rehab (which was definitely an issue this year with all the wildfires that occurred) and that the seed used is native.

My BLM position ended recently so I have resumed my CLM internship. The BLM position was an excellent opportunity and I am very thankful that the CLM internship is so flexible and helped facilitate it. I am now looking forward to the challenge of finding and collecting viable sagebrush seed to help out with the Rush Fire rehab.

Dust devil after the fire

My internship in Idaho is wrapping up. But I will continue to stay in Boise, as Lichen Curator at Boise State University through May or early June. I will continue to work on the same projects. I’m excited to stay and see the completion of the digitization of the lichen and moss records. Once that is complete, I will have the chance to finish some other projects, such as mailing off duplicate specimens. Boise, Idaho is growing on me, and I’m glad I have the opportunity to stay a bit longer. And unlike last winter, this year I am prepared for the cold weather, and have a bike to get around.

One of my last field days, myself and 4 coworkers drove out to an ACEC that has a rare sedge. It was thought extinct for many years, and then a graduate student randomly collected it, almost 100 years after it was first described. A road had been placed through the site. So we planted small sedge plants in the old road bed, to encourage the sedge growth. It was nice to feel that I made a difference, and I hope this small project goes a long way towards preserving this species. This sedge is only known from 2-3 sites in Idaho. However, my coworker, Pam, says there are probably more sites. Its stunning to think that in these large tracks of land, how much needs to explored. Even 10 months into my internship, it’s still hard to grasp how large and vast this country is.

Last month, a past CLM intern flew into Boise, Idaho to visit friends she made from her internship. Roger took us two and an additional past CLM intern out to lunch. It was very neat to have 3 interns in the same room, and I’m sure I’ll be back to visit the friends I made in Idaho in the future.

In other news, I am close to submitting an academic paper that my supervisor, Roger Rosentreter and I have been working on since June. It will be quite an accomplishment to finally submit it.

Every month when it comes time for me to write my blog I find, without fail, that I am astounded by the experiences I have had and the skills I have gained through this internship program. Last week we had a Conservation Corps Crew from Montana visiting our field office and we were able to get out several days with them to collect Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis seeds.  It was a HUGELY productive week for us and a lot of fun to get to work with a team of highly motivated, like-minded individuals.  It was great to hear the crew members stories and reflections about the conservation projects they worked on up in Montana. With the crew’s help, we were able to collect mind boggling amounts of seed, much of which will be used to re-seed previously burned sites in our field office.

This week was also an exciting week for Hillary (the other CLM Range Intern here) and myself because we were able to put out the first of thousands of freshly made sage-grouse fence markers.  It is a truly great feeling to successfully go through the process of having an idea, making a plan, and then implementing that plan in the field.  After weeks of mapping fence line, researching sage-grouse fence markers, and then making markers of our own, it is fantastic to be able to start marking fences in core sage-grouse habitat. We hope this effort will reduce sage-grouse fence collisions, which have been found to be responsible for 40% of total species fatalities.   

As we’re on the doorstep of Thanksgiving (at the time this was written), I felt it would be fitting to [attempt to] try and compare management and policy implementation to Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey is great, but a meal, it does not make. You need stuffing as well, probably some sort of potato dish (or 3), gravy, rolls, cranberries, blah, blah, yadda yadda – You get the picture.
It’s similar to creating and implementing actions and management plans for land use, wildlife, and resources, etc. Timing restrictions near sage grouse leks, a conservation plan does not make. You need habitat protections, and improvements. You need seasonal habitat ranges identified. You need a cornucopia (see what I did there?) of information at several different scales, and all the while, you still need to manage for other land use/purposes (recreation, minerals, etc.). Protection around winter roost sites alone doesn’t satisfy all there is to eagle protection, the same way if I slapped down a tofurkey and some green beans, you’d probably (and deservedly) label it one of the worst Thanksgiving dinners… ever (subtle message to some of you, leave your tofurkey at home).
And that’s just addressing the ingredients. A huge spread while eating it alone, a Thanksgiving meal, it does not make. Without different offices and agencies all cooperating and doing their best to address and identify a common goal to work towards, these plans can easily fall short. It’s important to keep in mind; one can clean the bird, while the other cooks it. I’ll peel the potatoes and you mash them. You distract so-and-so, and I’ll chuck the tofurkey in the garbage. Much in the same way, we collect the survey data, and they can collect vegetation information. In the end, in the same way you share a meal over the holiday season to increase the level of enjoyment, the best conservation plans and management goals are reached with similar cooperation and partnerships.
This is mainly off the heels of the kinds of communication I’ve witnessed at some level-1 team meetings here in Wyoming, where representatives from different agencies work together to share information and move towards common goals. I’ve also recently witnessed this at a workshop for identifying seasonal sage-grouse habitat where private sector and public agency personnel share input (both while sitting a large tables) to reach a goal with shared aspects. None of these plans will ever taste as good as a deep-fried turkey, but you get the picture… Happy Thanksgiving.

LW

It has been an amazing summer of exploring the southwest here in Farmington, New Mexico. When I think back to all the field work and weekend adventures we had, it’s easy to see why time passed so quickly! For a while we thought there would be a never ending drought and the seeds would never come, oh how we were wrong. We found a gold mine down in Cuba and were able to make a total of 45 collections throughout the summer and check out some breathtaking country there too. Cuba, NM looks like it hasn’t changed much since the 50’s and that’s exactly the way the people there like it. The wildflowers and trees were lush and green all summer long and we would go whole days without seeing another soul on the back roads.
Last Thursday was one of my favorite days of the internship so far, it has been great to end everything on a high note. Deidre and I were able to help the riparian coordinator, Sarah Scott, and the threatened and endangered species biologist, John Kendal, asses the health of the San Juan River here in Farmington. All summer we had made plans to get out and paddle the river outside of work, but other adventures just kept getting in the way. Running the San Juan with Sarah and John was so much better because of the wealth of knowledge they brought along. John was identifying every bird we passed and Sarah was showing us where and how the river had changed since the last Proper Functioning Condition assessment. We had some moments of excitement on some mini rapids but everyone made it to the takeout dry and unscathed.

As the season comes to an end, I would like to thank my mentor, Sheila Williams, for all the knowledge and support she passed on to us throughout my time here. It has been great to learn the local flora here on the Colorado Plateau as well as the inner workings of our busy office. Hopefully the future holds more exciting and fun jobs like this one!

This is my closing blog post for my range technician CLM internship. I am so incredibly grateful for the experience I have had in Oregon. The internship went above and beyond my expectations.
Buildings, farms, signs, and people from the Midwest were replaced with desert, mountains, dirt roads and cattle in my new setting out West. The nearest big box store was two hours away instead of two miles. It did not take me long to adjust and appreciate my new surroundings. My favorite part was being so close to trails and other outdoor activities. Oregon is such a beautiful place, I just might not leave.
The job itself was not exactly what I anticipated. Being from the Midwest, I don’t think I understood what rangeland was. What I understood was that I was going to be identifying grasses in the rangeland. I didn’t know that I was going to be identifying grasses that had already been eaten by cattle. Besides grass identification and plant monitoring, I learned quite a bit about government agencies and land management. I took a GIS course on ESRI and was able to create a project in hopes of improving the job for the next range tech. I got certified to ride an ATV/UTV, learned how to drive a big manual truck, and the list goes on and on.
Another big part of my experience was the people I met. As many of you are aware, Lakeview, OR had a lot of interns. Most of us lived in two government provided trailers in the parking lot of various government buildings on the south side of town. It was like living in a nature sorority. There was never a dull moment and we went on numerous camping excursions around the area. I did not expect to make so many good friends in such a small town!
After exploring life out west and working in a government agency, I have a better idea of what kind of work I would like to pursue in the future and where. There were opportunities that directly related to the range tech experiences, but I don’t have the underlying interest in range to follow that path. I am hoping that if I could do another internship in a position that more closer related to my interests, opportunities would arise again and in the right direction. I have no definitive plans for after my internship but I am hoping to try for another CLM internship in 2013. Whatever happens, I am excited for the adventures ahead!