I first heard of the CLM Program through an email from a biology listserv from my school. The description for the opportunity was pretty short, but it sounded interesting, so I looked into it. I really liked what I saw from the website’s description. I applied not really knowing what to expect, which actually may have been the reason I had such a great experience. I was open to any opportunity that allowed me to work outdoors with California’s native plants. The coolest part of this program is that everyone’s experience is different and unique, so you can never be 100% sure about what to expect. Fortunately, the CLM coordinators do an excellent job at paring us up with an opportunity that matches our interests.

I remember how nervous I felt the first day of my internship. I had just arrived to Redding that night and didn’t even have access to the apartment I would be staying at yet, let alone the electricity in the apartment. I waited anxiously in my car until the office opened up. I had no idea what my mentor looked like and everyone looked like they could be him. Then, I saw someone walking towards me and he asked if I was Sonya, and that is how I met my mentor Chase. He introduced me to the office and some of the people there. I even got a small tour of some of the BLM lands that I would be working at during my internship. After work, I headed over to my home for the next five months. It looked way too big for my small amount of belongings. Since I didn’t have my electricity set up yet, I had a cold shower that night. That’s when I realized I probably should have prepared better for this… The rest of my first week was very nice; I went to the employee meeting where I was formally introduced to the rest of the staff and got a tour of the different BLM areas I would be working in.

My mentor was great at letting us do our own thing. He trusted us and gave us the freedom to do what we most desired and what we found to be important. He didn’t dictate a list of things for us to do; instead he gave us suggestions on what could be done and allowed us to decide what we wanted to focus on. He was always there when we had questions, needed advice, or just wanted to brainstorm ideas of what to do next. His methods/approach with handling us interns allowed me to grow a lot as a person. I learned to plan ahead, be creative with ideas, and have the confidence to communicate plans and updates.

I have so many precious memories of Redding. I was able to do a variety of activates and enjoyed each and every one of them. I’ve collected all kinds of native seeds from three different counties –Shasta, Trinity, and Tehama- and cleaned some seeds, planted native plants in restoration areas, helped conduct mussel surveys in the Sacramento river as well as other wildlife, collected data for an elderberry survey that was part of a mitigation project, helped with nighttime owl surveys, helped set up wildlife tracker cameras, removed invasive weeds using herbicide and sheer force, helped with vegetative inventories –marking invasive weeds along the Sacramento River, maintained a greenhouse full of native plants, led groups of youth in planting native seeds at the greenhouse, helped prepare a site for restoration (mowing, placing or removing tree tubes, making cages for the grown oak seedlings to keep deer away long enough for them to grow, and tilling), went on an office river float in Trinity river, and much more!

I definitely enjoyed my internship. Through this experience, I feel that I have grown both personally and professionally. I came into the program knowing I enjoyed working with native plants and restoration, but not really knowing how I wanted to apply those interests to finding a job/career. Thanks to this program, I have a better idea of how and where I can utilize my skills. I have also further developed important skills that all tie into being an efficient, reliable, and knowledgeable employee. I was able to feel integrated in a professional setting and experience the dynamic of the work environment. I met lots of great people, developed my professionalism, and gained personal independence. I will never forget the city of Redding and the people I have met. While I am very sad to leave the BLM -the office where I have finally grown comfortable in- I am happy and excited to see what opportunities lay ahead. I know there is a lot of learning ahead of me and I can’t wait to further expand my knowledge and skills.

A few bullets of advice for future BLMers:
**Try not to isolate yourself. Be a part of as many meetings as you can so that you feel a part of the office environment and later know who to coordinate with in order to get your job done

**Set goals for yourself or small projects that you can see yourself accomplishing and stick to them

**Keep a journal of your activities, to-do lists, hours worked, etc. so you can look back at them in the future

**Spend a good amount of time staring at a map and getting familiar with main streets etc.

***Take tons of pictures!!

Farewell Redding, you will be missed!!

*Sonya Vargas

November has been wonderful! Finally, the time I’d been waiting for all summer has come! At last, we started planting some of those beautiful native plants that we had been tending to all summer! This has also been the month of giving thanks and give thanks for this opportunity and for the BLM. It gives me such comfort knowing that BLM and other organizations dedicate themselves to nurturing the earth and giving back to it. Collectively, we all help to make this world a better place for the animals and our future generations.
I am also thankful for the holidays that we interns were given, because of it, I was able to have my family come visit.  Together, we were able to go visit family in Oregon as well! I am really excited for the month to come, but it is also a bit sad because the final days of my internship are near. Nonetheless, I look forward to this next month and plan contribute as much as I can before my time is over.

Going through the furlough was quite the experience… The first week was okay but then as it dragged on, I became so eager to get back to work. It was wonderful to return to work, go out into the field and see that Redding’s trees had started to go through their fall transformations, covering the land in bright reds and oranges! We had to immediately begin our acorn collections since we missed out on a huge window of opportunity. While we were out collecting, I came across some pretty awesome dead trees covered in holes and filled with acorns; it seems the woodpeckers were busy making their little cubbies while we were away and filled them up with nice fat acorns!

We also visited Clear Creek Gorge which is a nice look out for salmon. They are currently breeding so there are salmon everywhere! The water was pretty shallow and the salmon are so BIG! Occasionally the salmon would flip their tails and splash the water as they prepared to lay their eggs. It was really such an incredible sight to see.

We have seen lots of deer families roaming around, which is always mesmerizing to me. They are just so elegant and graceful. Being from the city and not being around too much wildlife really put me in a bubble in that I never really put much thought into hunting.  But now it’s as if somehow I have barely confirmed that hunting is real 🙁 So, while seeing the deer running around makes me happy, I am equally saddened at the thought that we are in the midst of hunting season. Still, I am comforted by the fact that there are tons of rules and regulations when it comes to hunting.

We recently started invasive weed control. The first plant we tackled was Arundo donax, the giant reed grass.There were two small populations in the Shasta dam area. We prepared all of our equipment; I really don’t have much experience with herbicide, so this was my first time. I was pretty satisfied by the success of our efforts and left with a strong feeling that we did a good job and the Arundo wouldn’t sprout back anytime soon.

We have also continued our work with the students from Happy Valley Elementary. I enjoy being able to show them around the greenhouse and encourage them to get their hands in the dirt and treat our young plants with care. Soon, we will start having them help us plant out some of our seeds for next year’s restoration efforts. There is still a lot of work to be done here in Redding and I am really trying to help out as much as I can before it is time for my internship to end. I truly want to leave feeling accomplished and feeling like I contributed to something amazing!

I am about to finish my third month here in Redding and it has been a great experience so far. I have enjoyed getting to know the people around the office and I am happy that I no longer feel like a stranger in a strange place. I am getting familiar with our tasks and I have more courage to ask people here for help explaining things. I am trying my best to make the most out of this opportunity and learn important skills.  Some learning experiences and challenges may seem small, but the important thing is the sense of growth and maturity I feel at overcoming them.

This past month has been great. One of the coolest part of this internship is that since we use an elementary school’s greenhouse to grow out our seeds, we also get to spend time with some of the students once every two weeks where we can plan activities for them to learn about the greenhouse, about what BLM does, and hopefully about how to care for plants and the environment. I hope that with the time they spend with us, they can get a feel for the importance of maintaining land native and maybe even spark an interest in them to learn more, spread their knowledge with others, and know how to better protect their land. We have also gone on more stream surveys and those are always fun because of all the wildlife we encounter: turtles, giant salamanders, tree frogs, yellow-legged frogs, bullfrogs, crawdads, and fish!

I am excited for the restoration part of my internship! Since we have gotten our first taste of rain, we know that the planting season is upon us. I am eager to experience the many steps that lead up to a restoration project. Such as planning burns or mowing and herbicide application. Then there is a question of getting volunteers to help out, deciding which plants go where and then figuring out if we want to use some kind of irrigation system. Right now, I am trying to research about the options we may have for irrigation strategies like the deep tube system. I am also going to learn more about the different methods used for the native seed’s propagation, like how acorns are best grown in a bag with a moist paper towel in the fridge first, or how certain seeds need to be boiled first. I know there is a lot of hard work ahead, but I also know that it is going to be the most rewarding! I am also looking forward to getting a kayak lesson with a few people from the office, even though it will be terrifyingly cold, I know it is a great skill to learn and be able to use for surveys! Also, there is a day when I get to help at a BLM booth at the Coleman fish hatchery and I look forward to seeing inside the facility.

New space

Our office space was moved this month to make space for new future interns. This meant that we got to clean up, re-organize, and re-decorate! Not only did we get a bigger space, but we also got additional desks and computers to accommodate us all. We now have a big shelf where we can keep all of our seed collections sort of like a seed library. We even got to put up posters on our new wall space and I am absolutely loving it!

China Gardens Cages

We needed to go back to one of our restoration sites and check on the survival of the plants there. I was happy to see that most of the plants are surviving. Some oak trees were doing so well that they started growing out of their tubes, so we replaced them with new white cages that gave them plenty of space to grow out big and strong.

GIS Training

Our mentor set up a class with Andy, our GIS specialist to show us about using GIS. It was a very introductory type of course, which I was thankful because I had never used this program before. He is a great teacher and he is so knowledgable, he made it seem like there was nothing this little program couldn’t do! I enjoyed learning about how to create maps. Hopefully we can encounter a situation where we need to use this program so that I could get more experience with it, but for now I am just thankful for the general knowledge I gained.

Office Float

Our office coordinated with some other groups to out on a river float where we could learn about some of the projects going on around the river. For example, there are man built pockets along the river that create habitat for fish and wildlife. This was my first time going out on a river float, so it was pretty exciting, my favorite was going through the faster currents and little eddies, although the entire portion of river we covered did not even exceed a level 1! Overall, this was a great experience because I got to interact more with some of the people in our field office and to top it all off, we did this while floating along beautiful clear waters surrounded by a gorgeous view and even enjoyed a tasty BBQ afterwards!

Mussel Survey

Stuart took Renee, Virginia, and myself out to clear creek river and together we looked for mussels along the shallow parts of the river, It was kind of like a huge scavenger hunt day. We initially thought it would be a great day to be out because it would be nice and sunny, but with our luck, it actually started to rain on us for parts of our journey through the bone numbing water. I didn’t think I would ever feel cold here in Redding during the summer considering the 100+ degree weather I was starting to get used to, so you can imagine how shocked I was to actually hear thunder and lightning. The main mussel we found was Margaritifera. I was determined to find as many as I could, and I was proud to say that I found the most out of our little group! We found two big populations and some individuals scattered along the way. I was pleased to see this native mussle doing so well.

Invasive Plant Survey

Stuart took Virginia and I to take inventory of the invasive weeds growing along a 9 mile portion of the Sacramento River. The first two miles were the slowest because we needed to take down all the weed types we saw, take a picture, and GPS their location, but unfortunately it also happened to be the most disturbed section and had the widest variety of weed species. This was definitely one of the most adventurous things that I have ever done. There were some sections were we had to hike through thick bushes, poison oak, and thorny black berry. Not only did we hike, but we jumped, slid, and climbed as well! Our fearless leader was amazing though, he made sure we were perfectly safe throughout our journey and had so much energy… unlike myself who felt her feet would burn and disintegrate underneath her. We were debating on how we felt about not encountering as many weeds as we though we would find, did we feel a bit of disappointment at having hiked and gone through all that to not find weeds? But then we thought, “Seriously? OF COURSE WE ARE HAPPY! The weeds haven’t completely taken over!”

July has been my first month here in Redding, California and it has it been HOT! I am working at the Bureau of Land Management and I am a part of the botany crew, which consists of my mentor Chase, Renee, and Virginia. I get to work mostly with Renee out in the field. As Chase puts it –we get to do all the fun stuff. Since we are in 100+ degree weather, July has focused primarily on trying to keep the native plants alive. We water every other day at a restoration site in Oak Slough. We also visit a greenhouse every other day where we have native plants to water and take care of the plants. We do quite a bit of seed collecting, but one day that stands out to me is when we went to collect seeds at Clear Creek. It was a typical hot day and since the native grasses are along the water, we got to dip our feet in the nice, refreshing water and walk along the edges to reach the seeds we needed. I have also been cleaning seeds here and there, which is oddly addicting. Once I start, I have a hard time stopping because I just want to finish all of it! I am mostly looking forward to the restoration season because I feel that being able to plant native plants is very rewarding.

Here at the BLM office, people seem to always be hard at work, or out and about in the field. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming. They were all eager to take me out on the field and show me their projects:

HOOTING!

Renee and I were able to join our wildlife biologist, Stewart, for a night of “hooting.” The spotted owl has been outcompeted for resources by the bard owl, so it is protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Basically, he does these surveys on predestinated locations in BLM land where he plays owl sounds to trigger a responding call from owls that may be in the area. If he finds a spotted owl nest, there are certain regulations that would need to be implemented to make sure it is undisturbed and protected. I gained so much respect for this work because since it happens at night and lasts until early morning so it is pretty difficult to stay awake, especially after a day of work. Despite the lack of sleep, however, the trip was very rewarding. Not only did I learn about the project, but I also got to hear a spotted owl call back to us! When this happens, Stewart must do a follow up survey where he actually has to go hike around and see if he finds the owl that called, to make this easier, he brings some mice. Once the owl takes it, Stewart can then follow it and see if it takes it to a nest and then record what he finds so that the nest and owl can be protected. He is still trying to locate it, so for the meantime, we still have two extremely adorable mice in the office. I admit, even though I am all for providing the owls with a meal, I am happy that the mice will still be there to greet me everyday.

A day with the forester

I joined Chase and Virginia on a trip with the forester, Jeff, to go look for a special status plant in an a bit of forestland that will soon be restored through timber sales. Since they don’t let any kind of fire take its course on the parcels of forestland, the trees get more dense than normal as more and more seedlings begin to cover the understory. The solution is to simulate the effects of a fire by thinning down the forest and selling the wood. If we found a population of the plant, Jeff would need to make sure they remained undisturbed during his project. Even though we weren’t able to find any populations, Jeff said he would still be on the look out for the plant during the sale. I learned so much from Jeff like how they don’t take dead trees because wildlife likes to use them. I saw different sites that demonstrated what a forest looks like before and after a restoration project. They have so many details to take into consideration before and after a project like this, from protecting the plants and wildlife to making sure the roads are properly closed down after the project.

Elderberry survey

Virginia and I joined Stewart for a day of surveying. Elderberry serves as the primary means of life for the elderberry beetle. The adult feeds on the leaves of the elderberry, lays eggs on the bark crevices, and after development, the adult creates an exit hole. In this survey, we recorded the GPS location of each elderberry clump, its height, width, number of trunks, condition, and other details including the presence or absence of elderberry beetle exit holes. It was a very hot day out on the field, but we got a lot done. It was also, however, my first encounter with ticks. I am not ashamed to say that I am still pretty scared of those things and how they bury their heads in the skin. Luckily, I did a tick check as soon as I could. So, the three I found did not have a chance to get that far.

July has been great –hot, but full of tons of new experiences. I feel very thankful for this opportunity and lucky to work with such amazing people. I am excited for what August has in store!