Parting is such sweet sorrow…

Posted on 1 October, 2015 by Andrea Brendalen

Prettiest. View. Ever.

Forestry shenanigans

Everyone needs a little Shakespeare at the end of their internship. I hope you all feel the way I do in that I am so sad to leave my friends, colleagues, and this position in general. But at the same time, so excited for the next chapter in my life. At this moment, as of Wednesday, I have been hired on as a Soil Conservationist in Ohio starting in mid October!

One of the Grand Prismatic springs at Yellowstone!

It’s times like these, as I am tying up loose ends around the office and wondering how I can possibly have so much stuff in my possession, that I reflect on all the amazing times I’ve had during this internship. Travelling to Yellowstone, the Bighorns, TWO Oktoberfests, and a surprise trip back to Ohio for an interview.

Being a tourist in the Bighorns.

I can honestly say that this internship has changed me. It forced me to get out of my comfort zone. (Hello…never really did forestry before.) Combine that with being my own advocate and asking for training and advice. My co-intern and I kicked butt collecting data in the field and making a lot of really great contacts all around the state of Wyoming.

Getting artsy during lunch in the field.

All in all, I feel that I have lived an exciting life here in Wyoming. I explored the Black Hills in South Dakota and pretty much the entire state of Wyoming. There are some fantastic federal lands here that I will miss as I move back East. I have a whole new appreciation for those who care-take our federal lands. Often operating severely understaffed and with limited budgets, but making important decisions and positive change all the same. It is with a content heart and eyes wide open that I am entering the federal workforce. I hope more than anything I can maintain my optimism and remember the diligence and logic of some of my favorite mentors here in Wyoming. I hope they know that all of us 20-somethings just entering the workforce are looking to them and forming our professional selves in their image.

Look out world… here we come!

Go forth and make this a world you want to live in,

Andrea

At the moment…

Posted on 8 September, 2015 by Andrea Brendalen

Devils’s Tower. Huge, amazing, and people actually climb to the top!

One of those sub-par photos of a very gorgeous natural water feature in Yellowstone.

Oh you know, just a pic from my view driving home. #wyo

My family and friends worry sometimes…I wonder why!

At the moment, my fellow intern and I are getting ready to go the Bighorns for a week to help a forester in Casper with field work. Last night I went a little crazy making food and packing. I mean, I have enough food for two weeks. I’d say I won’t go hungry for these 4.5 days just a short drive from Buffalo. Oh well-never hurts to come prepared!

I recently took a bit of a vacation to Yellowstone and found that my iPhone is a pitiful camera for such occasions. It was amazing and beautiful, of course. But I came back telling everyone that I think the places I work everyday are better than Yellowstone. In fact, the drive back to Newcastle, via Cooke City and highway 296, had the most spectacular switchbacks and views. Even walking in the National Forest behind my cabin is gorgeous and I can go whenever I want. I hope everyone is finding beauty in all the mundane -yet fleeting things during their internships. I’ve been trying to remind myself to take the time to smell the roses, so to speak.

Our inventory projects are going very well. I think we finally have the hang of a proper field day. However, there was one time that neither of us brought the data sheets. Have you ever done that, where each of you thought the other person had grabbed something only to find that neither of you did. That would have been fine, as we could simply recreate the data sheet on normal paper right? Wrong. We had NO scrap paper. So what do enterprising young ladies do? We record all the data on the iPhone in the notes section and copy and paste it into an email at the end of the day and have it on our computers to use! There is something to be said for this technology stuff!

Also, we were assigned another project that included driving all over a huge piece of land and digitizing major vegetation types and later doing timber inventories for a fuels analysis. Except 85% of the roads on the map we had were ATV Trails! In short, we got a little stuck in certain places and had to hoof it in some STEEP areas. But when it’s steep, there are almost always good views. I hope we plan a little camping for work there, because there is this one camp site that has a 300 foot drop 20 feet away from it, overlooking a view to die for. A very desolate view, but hey, that’s Wyoming for you.

I hope everyone is doing once-in-a-lifetime type things!

Andee

Having way to much fun and getting paid for it.

Posted on 10 August, 2015 by Andrea Brendalen

Don’t get me wrong. My fellow intern and I are doing a lot of useful work. For instance, these last few weeks we have finished one entire fuels reduction project, completely designed the inventory scheme for another, completed over 30 inventories for said project, received UTV training, and managed a trip to Fort Collins. In short, things are really picking up in our work-load as we have over 100 more inventories to complete before our time here is up, two additional projects helping area foresters in the next month, and a trip to Yellowstone planned. I never knew going into this internship I would be learning so much and having such a good time. I think this may be my shortest blog post yet, but hey, there are pictures!

Best, Andee

Breathtaking Badlands

I want to call these the sherbet mounds. That sounds official to me.

You never know what you’ll run into on BLM property. I little of this, a little of that, a little 100 year-old homestead.

Give me an L! L!

Deciding the fate of trees with some paint. They give us a lot of power as foresters.

This is the life…the hot, dry life.

Has anyone been to Wall Drug near the Badlands? You need to go and ride this ridiculous Jackalope!

Never Run in the Woods in Northeastern Wyoming

Quote

Posted on 10 July, 2015 by Andrea Brendalen

Hopefully, that title made the reader a bit curious as to why they shouldn’t run in the woods in Northeastern Wyoming. It’s because you might step on a snake and run away like a crazy person while your coworker laughs at your misfortune and entertaining reaction. This happened to me and I hope it doesn’t happen to you! Following in the trend of unfortunate occurrences, I have a poison ivy rash. This is interesting because there is essentially no poison ivy on this side of the state of Wyoming. Last weekend, my coworker and I stopped at a trail-head in Custer State Park (South Dakota) where it was growing like gangbusters. I managed to take a picture and get out without touching it…or so I thought. I’m now nursing some itchy bumps and wishing I had more sense and luck when it comes to poison ivy. Again, don’t let this happen to you!

Poison Ivy in South Dakota

I will now move on to some of the more positive things that have happened since I last posted here. Sara and I attended a Society of American Foresters meeting in the Big Horn Mountains a few weeks ago. After driving for over 3 hours and going around some frightening switchbacks up a mountain, we arrived right on time to meet in a parking lot under a large rock formation, called Steamboat Rock. We talked about recent happenings in forestry during lunch and then jumped into our trucks and followed the leader to a recent timber sale! This was really exciting because I had yet to walk around a finished timber sale in Wyoming, let alone a clear cut of lodge-pole pine! It was kind of amazing hearing about the challenges they faced in carrying out the cutting – which they did on foot with chainsaws…in 4 feet of snow. Imagine trying to cut a tree so the stump is only a few inches above the ground in snow that deep. I was very impressed. However, after hearing about the lodge-pole pine trees they sold, I was filled with so much pride for our ponderosa pine trees in the Black Hills. Apparently, aside from our trees being more beautiful in the Black Hills, ours also grow twice as fast and twice as large. I guess we’re just lucky. We left the meeting in the Bighorns with a few more friends in Wyoming forestry and a lot more local knowledge of the timber industry in this part of the country.

Society of American Foresters meeting. Notice the lodge-pole pine trees in the background.

Steamboat Rock in the Big Horns.

Slash-pile from the timber sale (tops and branches from merchantable trees).

The final subject I’ll touch on is how great our first forest project is going. Background: The project name is Bear Run and the chief goals are to improve winter habitat for mule deer and to reduce fuel loads by thinning trees. So far we have re-drawn the parcel map for the project, began painting boundaries, began marking Stream Management Zones, and painted leave-trees in an acre demonstration plot in the largest unit. We did some timber cruising and surveying to find how many trees we had per acre and decided how much we wanted to take out in order to reduce fuel loads, while keeping habitat for mule deer. I should also mention that there are quite a few ponderosa pines that exhibit old growth characteristics like old age, a gnarly/twisted appearance, and flat-topped vs. pointy-topped. Bottom line is: this is a really cool project and I’m having so much fun! I’m sure things are only going to get crazier and more fun and I can’t wait to share it all with you in a few weeks.

Standing on a steep and rocky Mountain Mahogany meadow at Bear Run. A view to die for!

Old-growth Ponderosa Pine tree. Notice the gnarly appearance, large girth, and flat-top.

That’s all for now,
Andee

I’m definitely not in Virginia anymore…

Posted on 22 June, 2015 by Andrea Brendalen

Hi! I am Andrea, working with the BLM doing forestry work in Newcastle, Wyoming.

My first week here at the Newcastle Field Office consisted mostly of onboarding activities including gaining computer/ internet access and taking defensive driving courses to use federal vehicles. While that was necessary and important, my mentor also took me out to a few of the parcels where we would be doing our forest inventories and timber cruises. I also had the opportunity to meet some of the landowners and loggers involved in the contracts. The conversations I heard were completely over my head!

Cool crooked tree we saw near the South Dakota/Wyoming Border.

Most of these forestry and timber sales activities are completely new to me. In my previous positions, I performed forestry inventories for conservation planning only. No one was going to be logging the woods I was working in, except possibly to create habitat for flora and fauna. Terms like board feet, stumpage, and uneven-aged management are unfamiliar vocabulary!

This is the view from my backyard/forest service land!

It is incredible talking (or rather listening) to the landowners and loggers as they have
such concern about the welfare and management of the forests. They all point out
examples of proper tree thinning and nice meadows that have been created. They also
point out stands of trees that are too dense and should be managed so they are better
protected from Mountain Pine Beetle and fire damage in the future. Ultimately, forest
management and proper thinning will allow trees to grow larger, as they are not competing for sunlight and for the limited nutrients afforded by some of the lower quality soils/marginal sites. The Ponderosa Pines out here grow taller and straighter than any species of tree I have ever seen. It’s no wonder they are such an important timber tree. The really nice trees in well-managed forests are just majestic. I never thought I would use the word majestic for a pine tree, but the perfection of some of these trees is amazing. You can just tell that they are healthy. Some of the larger ones are well over 100 years old and some can live to be over 200 years old.

I couldn’t believe it, but on the drive home from one of the parcels, it was snowing. Not just snowing, but accumulating quickly on the grass and road. When I woke up the next morning, there were about three inches on the ground. I came here from Virginia, so sub-freezing temperatures in late May just don’t happen. Welcome to
Wyoming!

Inspecting a prescribed burn area post treatment!

My second week was turbulent. I came back from the field one day and was told that my mentor had died unexpectedly the previous night. I felt shock and sadness and wondered what to do next. After a bit of scrambling by the office manager and other BLM professionals, nearby foresters were contacted to help fill the role of our mentor. Also, the Range Technician, Wildlife Biologist, and others came forward and offered to create learning experiences for us in their fields of expertise.

All in all, these first few weeks have been a wild ride. I am simultaneously learning about forest management, the role of fire in the Black Hills region, and all of the intricasies invlolved in making relationships and completing projects in the Federal Government. Most importantly, I am having so much fun and meeting some of the most interesting people with backgrounds more varied than weather out here!

I wish everyone a fantastic internship!

All Best,