The maples were almost in bloom when I left the city of Buffalo to begin work as a botany intern in the Vale district of Oregon. Soon their fruits will mix with the urban sounds in the air and perhaps land gently on the waters of Lake Erie. I’ve lived in Ontario, Oregon for a month, yet, the torrents of Niagara River escaping the glassy waters of Lake Erie persistently occupy my consciousness. Personal relationships formed and disappeared within that industrial environment and memories of those now guide me through a new land void of my personal narrative.

My main interest concerns the ecological relationships within a social and natural system that constantly places us within a complex narrative full of diverse elements. However, despite my best efforts, my descriptive abilities fail as I try to explain the layers of relationships occurring within the public lands and sagebrush steppe. A long history of use sits heavily on these lands and it appears on the landscape as some indecipherable script.  As I try to write something of this hidden language for the entry, I come in contact with a photograph of two men near Steens Mountain. Both men wearing denim jeans and layers of cotton flannel stare into the camera with a dejected aspect to their faces. Behind them a vast steppe stretches to the foot of the mountain and a startling gray looms in the sky.  A shovel sticks out from the ground and one of the men holds a cheat grass bouquet. I mention this photograph because it captures a moment in the ecological transformation of the sagebrush steppe. A change sparked by the grazing of cattle and continues to this day. Perhaps after staying out here and listening to more stories about the land I will be better equipped to explain these relationships, but this is all I have for now.