This has been fun. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I am grateful looking back at all the people, plants, and places I’ve had the privilege of experiencing. Seasonal work is pretty cool, too. A lot of my time here in Boise has been spent talking with Cara, our mentor, Joe, and many other people from the office about where we want to go or where we’ve been as far as jobs and careers are concerned. I think there’s an unfortunate expectation and pressure for young adults to have an idea of what they want to be and how they plan on getting there as fast as possible. From a financial standpoint I understand this mentality if you are in debt or want to avoid debt in the future or even if you just need to know that you can afford to live and maybe one day afford to support a family. Personally, I am so incredibly grateful for the privilege to not need to stress about whether I have something lined up next. But that’s a hard thing to be okay with. I often have to make a concerted effort to remind myself that it’s okay to not know what I’m doing or even where I’m going. It’s okay to not know if I want to go back to Grad School. It’s okay to not know if I want to embark upon another internship. It’s even okay if I don’t want to go into land conservation and anything remotely involved in Biology as a field of work! Who knows maybe I’ll go into culinary arts or physical therapy or criminal justice.

All of this is to say that as much as I’ve truly appreciated learning to ID plant species, remembering the plant codes, and so many other skills for land management/conservation work, above everything else, I have appreciated being a part of something genuine. This wasn’t some cookie-cutter, superficial, resume-boosting couple of months. This was hard work. Physically and mentally, we invested ourselves into this experience just as others, both people and plants, invested in us. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the things I’m most excited about from this internship is being able to return to the allotments we worked on in ten, twenty, even sixty years and hopefully see the actual efforts in the land. Who knows, maybe I’ll just throw on some gloves and start planting sagebrush plugs when I’m ninety.

Anyhow, much respect to all of you fellow interns for your tales and toils and I look forward to seeing where we all go from here! A big thanks to the Four Rivers Field Office staff and our mentor, Joe, for your friendships and knowledge. And many thanks to the CBG staff that are really the source for the sincerity and meaning that this program holds for me.

All my best,

Zander,

Four Rivers Field Office, Boise, ID

Osage oranges near Anderson Reservoir at the border with Oregon.

A banded orb-weaving spider (Argiope trifasciata) found while collecting Eriogonum strictum.

National Public Lands Day in the Owyhees.

The Snake River at Swan Falls Dam.

Full moon setting after the lunar eclipse.

Western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) hanging out while collecting Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus.

The phone hummed, buzzing on the book next to Cooper’s mattress. An electric guitar cried out the tune of “Up Around The Bend.” Cooper awoke with a start, frantic to subdue the noise before it woke up his housemate down the hall. Without a second thought about the dream he was having about biking through the woods of an old-growth forest, Cooper sat up on the side of his bed, feet planted firmly on the wooden floor.

Another day was unfolding before Cooper, another day that, even though he had a comfort and routine with his work as a CLM intern at the Four Rivers Field Office in Boise, would more than likely bring about something unexpected. Omelette with toast for breakfast, carrot sticks, trail mix, and rice and beans in his pack for lunch, Cooper slipped out into the cool early morning.

The sun illuminated the sky like a mother watching her son grow. More and more the sun would rise but only until you looked away would it become evident how quickly it was changing, how quickly it was rising to warm the earth below it. Cooper loved this moment of the day. He especially loved the days in the field that would have already begun well before sunrise, so that he could walk through the grasses and feel more than see the sunrise.

Today was no such day. Today Cooper arrived at the office to hear that both he and his co-explorer, Prairie, would be seated upon their thrones in the great hall that was their cubicle. The posters hung, woven from the finest fibers, the text books rested, breathing slowly with their old age, and the two computers blinked, waking from their slumber. A fresh stack of DIMA-data sat upon their desk, letting off a sweet aroma of printer ink and pencil lead. With the click of the mouse and the tap of the keys on their keyboards, they were off. Soaring through plant codes, ground cover types, and sagebrush heights, the two interns sat stoically perched upon their computer chairs. This data would be reported throughout all the lands, both public and private. It was of the utmost importance that it be entered with diligence and care. Cooper and Prairie had grown to love each plant code as their own, subspecies after subspecies, each more cherished than the last.

And so this glorious DIMA-data entry day came and went. A beautiful reminder of the things and places we hold dear, the moments of the day we look forward to, and the joys of what being a CLM intern brings.

*The character names in this piece were inspired by a couple of raptor friends that we were privileged to get to meet and see this past week. Thanks for letting me get a little prose-y. Thought it would be fun to re-imagine the office days that are sometimes harder to love than the field days. Hope all is well with everyone!

p.s. I apologize for the tardiness.

Banding a Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) near Snowbank Mountain, Idaho.

Top of a switchback along Alice Lake in the Sawtooth Wilderness Area.

Campsite at Toxaway Lake for our weekend hike in the Sawtooth Range.

Since my first post, Cara (intern), Joe (mentor), and I have done a total of 11 SOS collections and somewhere around 50 habitat assessment transects. Many of our transects have been done at locations that have been assessed in the past, specifically at allotments that have been burned in the last year or so. Hearing our mentor, Joe, talk about how allotments used to look even within the last year, gives me a good idea of how superficially destructive fire can be. It’s always a welcome site to see the return of good forb diversity as well as little sagebrush recruits. On our travels we’ve come across some “friends in the foothills.” I’ve attached a few pictures below.

In addition to transects and SOS collections, we’ve also started to help with riparian assessments of “PFC” (proper functioning condition). This has been a nice change of pace as we get to work with more employees within our field office and gain more perspective into the other types of work that go on.

I’m looking forward to continuing to be involved in other projects as the collection season comes to a close and we finish up our habitat assessments. We’ve heard rumor of working with butterflies, raptors, some fish-shocking, and maybe even a river-ranger trip to monitor cow/grazing presence along the Payette River. Fingers crossed for all of those things!!

Hope everyone is learning a lot and still finding time to get goofy!

Best,

Zander

Intern at Four Rivers Field Office, Boise, ID.

Mourning dove eggs under an Arrowleaf Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata).

First I want to say thank you to all of you for either being interns, thinking of being interns, or providing the opportunities that allow for us to be or think about being interns. I appreciate you all and have a lot of respect for the paths that we have all decided to take.

I can’t stop thinking about telling my future kids about what I did out of college. The places I got to visit, animals I got to see, and people I got to meet and work with all because of this internship. As much as I try to enjoy each moment as it comes and goes, there’s something so exciting about the notion of being able to share these experiences down the road. Every time we drive to Midvale or the McConnell allotment or even just driving around Boise I’ll be hit with sudden waves of disbelief. How did I get here?? I grew up in a small beach town north of Boston and thought Idaho was one big field of potatoes. If you had asked me what I’d be doing post-graduation at just about any moment before I had heard about the CBG CLM internship I would have said anything but living in Boise doing sage-grouse habitat assessments in the Four Rivers field office. I didn’t even know what the BLM was until I came to Colorado for college, let alone what a sage-grouse was. And that’s just it, the most valuable thing I will take away from this experience is the vast expanse of new knowledge I acquire daily.

Having been turned on to plant biology fairly late in the game (Jr. year of college), I feel like I’ve only just started building a foundation on which to build my greater plant biology library. Being at the training in Chicago and in our district office with my two extremely knowledgable coworkers (Joe Weldon, Cara Thompson) I struggle with and also appreciate how much I have to learn. As hard as it can be, there’s something so engaging about doing or learning something for the first time. You’re aware of every little thing that’s happening around you and completely immersed in the moment. It’s exhausting and frustrating if you aren’t a “natural” right away, but the reward of looking back once you’ve mastered the new skill and of remembering when you were floundering trying to ID a grass or conduct a transect and seeing how far you’ve come is a great feeling.

I’m proud of myself for having ventured into a completely alien place and job and being one month away and loving it so much.

My goals for this next month are to keep asking questions, not be self-conscious about admitting what I don’t know, and to keep ‘splorin’!!

p.s. Never done this blog thing before so my apologies if I’m missing the mark but hope you all are well!

Signing off from the land of trees.

–

Zander Goepfert