Farewell from Wyoming!

Well, I’ve come to the end. Time to bow out and let somebody else have an amazing experience in Laramie.

This was a crazy year for the federal government, which meant a crazy year for its agencies (the BLM), their programs (SOS), and their interns. As an intern outside the BLM office, I had a hard time finding the forms I was meant to fill out and figuring out what pieces of each collection needed to go where. The intern before me left some checklists and instructions, and in turn I tried to organize information for the next person. I think that many of my difficulties will be resolved with the introduction of the new website and the online data entry, which will hopefully be available for 2014 field season.

Everyone I interacted with as part of this program was wonderful. The grad students here at the University of Wyoming helped me get adjusted to the lab and to Laramie, and I will miss them all. Ernie and Ron at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium always made time to check my plant IDs and help me improve my skills. Kayla at Bend Seed Extractory could not have been more friendly or helpful. Megan Haidet at the National Office and Andrew Clark at the National Herbarium kindly fielded all my questions. To all of them and others too numerous to mention, thank you so much! I really appreciate both your work and your attitude.

In the new year, I am headed south to do lab archaeology, helping to look at the plant remains from human sites all over the world. So ends the year of the outside jobs. I loved being in the field, and in addition to learning a whole bunch of new plants, seed-collecting gave me a lot of perspective in archaeology. People in the past were gatherers of seeds and fruits, just like me. I have a much better idea of what it takes to live on a landscape like this. Maybe I can get out in the field next summer by doing nature walks focusing on ethnobotany and paleoethnobotany. That would be a kick. I’ll have to check out organizations in my new town.

I loved Laramie pretty much from the moment I got here, and despite the bitter cold, I am very sad to leave. I never get tired of sunrises over the Laramie Range and sunsets over the Snowies. Here some of the photographic highlights from the past 6 months here–I think you’ll get the picture.

Cheers,
Abby D.

Greetings from Wyoming!

It is -12 degrees F as I write, and has not broken 10 degrees in three days. Kind of a nasty shock for this Southwest girl when I got back from Thanksgiving in Arizona! Needless to say, no more fieldwork for us. The last of the sage collections are in, the pressed plant specimens are off to the Smithsonian and the Rocky Mountain Herbarium, and I am wrapping up the SOS work for this year.

The biggest thing now is to make sure all the loose strings are wrapped up before I leave here. I’m trying to organize all the information we collected and put together some useful tips for the next person. I can tell that the intern before me tried to make things easier for the following year, and I would like to do the same if I can. Anything we can do to make the learning curve less steep. There are also some stray herbarium vouchers from years past that I will try to get documented and moved somewhere safe.

I spent some time talking with the folks at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium this week, and they have done detailed work over an impressive area of the Rocky Mountain West. Wyoming and the mountainous part of Colorado have been covered pretty thoroughly, and they are slowly working their way north. However, there are still blank spots on the map that could use some detailed botanizing. Something to keep in mind for the future.

Time is going way too fast!

Stay warm everybody!

Cheers,
Abby D.

Greetings from Wyoming!

With the fieldwork just about complete, the time has come to box up all those pressed voucher specimens and send them off to various herbariums. Keeping all the components of each collection straight is a bit of a challenge, since there are over 50 different collections at this point. Now I am finally getting a handle on exactly what we brought in this year.

It’s amazing to look through the pressed specimens and see the cross-section of Wyoming and northern Colorado plants and the many interesting places we visited this summer. It would be interesting to compile the SOS data in a way that would let you see the range for plants all across the West, probably using the data from herbarium specimens. The Rocky Mountain Herbarium here at the University of Wyoming already has a web-based map of its collections, which allows to search by species and see where you’re most likely to find them. That has been an invaluable tool for seed-hunting this year. Hopefully the specimens we collected will be additional data.

Next up, DNA lab work! Should be interesting!

Cheers,
Abby D.

Greetings from Wyoming!

We don’t mess around here in Laramie—October 4 marked our first snow, and it was not just a little flurry. It’s hard to say how many inches it was, because the wind whipped it away so fast. In the front yard there were four inches, while the back had drifts a foot deep. But it really is still Autumn, and it was practically gone the next day. The field season is rapidly coming to a close. But what a summer it’s been!

Although I’m doing Seeds Of Success work, part of this learning experience at the University of Wyoming is getting the insider’s perspective on graduate school. Much of the excess seed we collect will come back here to be used for research, and I have enjoyed getting to know the students in the lab and being able to help them with their projects. Because of being here, I have a much clearer idea of what higher education means for me and what I want from a program. These internships are designed to help people make contacts and get the kinds of experiences that will be valuable down the road, and that has definitely been true for me.

Currently waiting for the government to reopen, and I am chomping at the bit to get back out there and start bringing in the sage!

Cheers,
Abby D.

Greetings from Wyoming!

It finally happened—not Fall per se, but that first day when you realize the summer will have to come to an end. From a botanical perspective, focus has swiveled around to scoping out sages and shrubs. It took me a while, but I am starting to appreciate the late season action, so different from the early excitement of blooms. The fruiting time can be beautiful, too.

There can be some unexpected encounters in the field. A few weeks ago, we were out chasing plants along a little-used road and ran smack into the historical Fort Laramie. It was a good lunch spot and a beautiful day, and we took a little time to wander around the buildings and exhibits. That was also the day we ran across some wild plums!

My team has gone back to school, so it looks like much of my fieldwork will be solo from now on. I really appreciated them, their company and extra pairs of seed collecting hands!

Cheers,
Abby D.

Greetings from Wyoming!

These days life really is a highway. Life is then usually a dirt road, followed by an obscure 2-track and occasionally a dead end, but more frequently a network of paths that aren’t even on the map. Seed collecting has been taking me and the Seeds of Success interns hither and yon all over the eastern part of the state. I’m still amazed at how diverse the landscapes are. From the shortgrass prairies to the sagebrush steppe, from the alpine forests down the foothills, into riparian corridors and back up the bluffs, we get to see a lot of country.

We also get to see a lot of weather, and the summer storms have been amazing to watch (although they do not always bring very much moisture…). Alas, it was during one of those storms that Wyoming decided I was due for a new windshield. On the bright side, a healthy respect for this environment and the plants that adapt to it is not amiss.

Summer’s flying by!

Cheers, Abby D.

Greetings from Wyoming!

I have been here in Laramie a little over a week, and after unpacking (mostly) and watching the first of many summer hailstorms on the Laramie Plain, I am finally settling in.  The transition has been a whirlwind: in two weeks I packed and moved from my New Mexico archaeology gig to botanizing in southeast Wyoming.  I just missed the training in Chicago, and after a few days in the field, I took up the leadership role for the SOS team.  Won’t say that I never missed a beat (still missing them—if you find them, let me know), but I couldn’t be more pleased.  Laramie is a solid western community with college town flair, and as for the landscape, it was love at first sight.  Of course, reliable sources tell me that July is Wyoming’s one pleasant month of the year.  I’ll keep you posted.

This internship’s primary goal is getting seed collections for the Seeds of Success program.  This means that my job is to hike, camp, and look at plants all summer—so what am I supposed to do for fun?!  Write blogs, I suppose, and maybe catch some live music in the park for the Fourth of July.  So far we’ve been scouting and collecting on the Laramie Plains, down to the grasslands of northern Colorado, up to the Powder River Basin, and high up the Snowy Range today for a change of pace.  The wildflower display is fantastic, and sometimes it’s hard to remember it’s the seeds we want.  Right, seeds.  Less pretty, more useful.

Still learning, and hopefully will get better as time goes on.  You can be jealous now, or just enjoy your own CLM experiences.  Happy summer!

Cheers, Abby D.