The seed harvest continues here in the Medford District of Southern Oregon, and shows no sign of slowing yet. Our team has already surpassed the initial goal of 60 collections. With each collection being at least 20,000 seeds, that makes 1.2 million seeds so far! More than 100 collections for the year, seems entirely reasonable at this point. The nearby availability of a wide range of elevations, along with an abundance of high-moisture areas, certainly contributes to a sustained seed season in this part of the world. Here are a few of the habitats we have visited lately, along with some of their denizens.

Marsh in the southern Cascades

Cicuta douglasii with characteristic chambered root. Do not eat this plant!

Siskiyou Crest meadow ‘Where the sagebrush meets the stream’

Boykinia major and Aconitum columbianum

Senecio hydrophilus in Cascades vernal lake

Hemizonia congesta and Blepharipappus scaber, together in oak woodland. ‘Won’t get fooled again’

This Cascades fen is home to some fantastic flora…

such as Drosera rotundifolia…

Mimulus primuloides, Ranunculus aquatilis, and Gentianopsis simplex

Enjoy the rest of summer, everyone!

Finishing Up Monitoring: Trout Creek Mountains

The time was 4:00am and everything was quiet at the Fields, Oregon Research Station. I stared up at the ceiling, reminiscing on all the good and bad times this field season in the Trout Creek Mountains have brought our group. Dan and I, with the help of the living legend known as Randy, have encountered many obstacles and experienced many great adventures in the last leg of our journey.

Flat tires, rugged terrain, rain storms, rattlesnakes, and those pesky red and black ants were no match to our enthusiasm of working in the field. If we encountered a bad event such as a rain storm or a flat tire, we would laugh it off and work together to get everything done. Dan and I would always motivate ourselves thinking what would the BLM Legends do in this situation? Usually Randy’s response would be an “Oh God…” while rolling his eyes. Seriously, we all had a tough time out here and you would have to have a very good sense of humor to cope with the harsh conditions.

Everyday we would pack to deal with hot weather. We would always do a series of checks to make sure everything was sturdy and not forgotten. (It would be a pain in the butt to travel forty-five miles to a trend site and then find out you forgot the rulers…<_<) Dan and I would take turns driving the UTV over many types of rugged terrain. I prefer to drive through shallow rivers, while Dan likes to drive through basaltic rock fields.

Our final day would be in the Maggie Creek Pasture, which would be located on the Oregon and Nevada border. I got up after fifteen minutes of reminiscing and prepared for the field day. We would drive through the darkness in the morning and follow our JUNO GPS device to the potential random sampling sites we would have to monitor. Once we got to an individual site, we would set up a three by three foot plot and record all the species of plants located within the small site. I would photograph the cardinal directions to help the ES&R monitoring report show that we were there and this was what the site looks like. The random sampling plots were established by an algorithm in the ArcGIS to help find areas to monitor plant species. If we found at least two perennial grasses and a forb, the site would be considered in good condition and was recovering from the previous fire. (Usually these random sites would be on a smooth slope under a 35 degree angle and away from water sources. Unfortunately, these sites would be surrounded by sharp cliffs or near running water.) Sometimes we would work up to twelve hours a day or more. (I am sorry Krissa and Wes! I swear I will use those comp hours. ^_^;;) After a hard day in the field, we returned to a nice low pressure shower and a good helping of ramen noodles. That evening there was a fire in our area and our field station was filled to the brim with rangeland firefighters! O_o We even witnessed a helicopter land in our backyard! Overall, Dan, Randy, and I would pack and prepare for tomorrow despite all the very cool distractions that happened at our field station that evening.

A helicopter landed behind our field station to refuel.

By the end of the monitoring season in the Trout Creek Mountains, we must have traveled close to three to four hundred miles of land on our UTV. We monitored close to twenty five trend sites and over ninety random sampling sites. We were covered with dust, but we would be always ready for future data entry. This last day, Dan and I treated ourselves to a BRB milkshake near the Fields Station before heading back to our BLM office.

We sort of miss the adventure and the excitement of the Trout Creek Mountains, but it is time to move on and finish our job. We had Desert Meadows, Lamb Ranch and the Miller Homestead Fires that we would have to monitor. After monitoring and data entry, we would start writing our ES & R reports.

This was a humorous comic based on our escapades in the field.

Lamb Ranch: The Brave and the Bold

Dan and I finished our last field monitoring experience at the Lamb Ranch site. Lamb Ranch was considered a small fire that occurred a couple of years ago. A lot of attention had been invested in this pasture due to one main reason…Medusahead (Bum BUM Baaaaaaaa). You thought cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) was bad, medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae) would be considered the kaiju of all invasive grasses in our area. This type of grass would spread rapidly and grow within a field. Overtime, this grass would form a dense mat of litter that would be considered fantastic fuel for fires. Other forbs and perennial grasses would have a difficult time growing with this sort of grass. In the past, land managers had to pull out the big guns by using Plateau, a form of herbicide that would be used to fight the medusahead. The treatment was considered successful in the past…but did it really eliminate the medusahead from the area??

We drove along the rough back country roads of the Stinkingwater Allotment. If you were to drive through this area, it would be considered a roller coaster ride…that goes five miles an hour. The severe bumps, sudden turns, and the occasional Great Pyrenees in the middle of the road made the ride seem very harsh. It is not for the faint of heart! You may be asking yourself, “Justin, why are you even going through this?” My answer would be, “Well…because it is my job!” 😉

We had two BLM Legends with us to help assess the landscape. Bill and Randy had previously been to this location and directed us to where we should establish the plot. I got out of the truck and landed on the ground with a crunch. I looked down to assess what I landed on and noticed the type of grass that was crushed….it was medusahead. I looked to my left and right to see any sort of forb, but all I saw was the invasive grass. I lifted my head and saw that a majority of the landscape was covered with a dense mat of medusahead. The areas that were heavily treated with Plateau had a large amount of crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum) growing up. I sighed and looked to the other intern Dan, who was shaking his head with frustration. Bill told us the history of the pasture and how this area had many fires in the past. The medusahead quickly took over the majority of the crested wheatgrass seedings and created an upslope battle for the local land managers. We established our plot and began to monitor the area…

Dan and I never encountered so much medusahead and litter before, but we wanted accurate readings. We wanted to know if there were perennial forbs under the litter or if we got a direct hit on a special plant. We managed to find a few perennial forbs, but they were struggling. This trend site took me a very long time to monitor, because I would have to kneel on the ground and look past the medusahead for other forbs and grasses. This place could’ve had rattlesnakes as well buried within some of the rocky areas surrounded by medusahead, so we had to be on the lookout. Only the brave and the bold CLM interns were up to the challenge of monitoring this last trend site.

Overall, the site had a ridiculous amount of litter formed by medusahead from this year and previous years. There was Wyoming sagebrush (A. tridentata subsp. Wyomingensis), Lomatium spp., Sandberg bluegrass (Poa secunda), crested bluebunch grass (Pseudoroegneria spicata), and Long Leaf Phlox (Phlox longifolia) present, but they were struggling. I saw a group of wild horses looking through the area for potential meals, but they did not look too happy… (Probably due to the fact that we were monitoring near their favorite juniper tree) I do have hope for this site. Even with the large amounts of medusahead, there were still good perennial plants trying to grow. If the land managers were to work together with the private land owners to get rid of the medusahead, the future would look bright. For now…the medusahead was here to stay…

Burns, Oregon is Burning!?
After a long day of traveling to John Day Fossil Beds, I fell over on my bed and prepared to look over some of the reports Dan and I were supposed to do next week. We finished all of the data entry, developed our ES & R folders, and completed all of our field work, which was an amazing feat to do. We had to incorporate all of our data into seven main reports. I fell asleep during my assessment of the reports and slept for two hours…^///^

When I woke up to continue to look at the report structure, I noticed something was very off about my room… I looked at the sunlight and it was a faded gold color. Usually around 5:00pm the sunlight was still bright. I walked into the kitchen to make an early dinner and I saw what was partially blocking the sunlight. On the hillside of Burns/Hines, Oregon, a large column of smoke was rising. A wildfire broke out!

A wildfire on the hill slope of Burns, Oregon… O_O

I saw many airplanes and helicopters assessing the area as the hillside was burning. I quickly traveled to Dan’s house to see if he knew what was going on. He contacted Randy and found out that someone accidently started the fire at the shooting range. The rumors were that the object that caused the fire could’ve been a small explosive ordinance or a magnesium tracer bullet (Well…you know the nature of rumors) . I traveled up the hillside far away from the fire to get a better vantage point. I zoomed onto the site with my camera and got some good pictures of the helicopters and aircraft above the area.

A helicopter picking up water at the local reservoir.

Since Burns, Oregon is considered a major dispatch for firefighters in our district, the fire did not last a chance. Many firefighters were on the scene and extinguished the fire. The fire burned for a couple of hours before it was smothered by water from the helicopters. Thankfully the fire did not spread down the slope to our town. The experience of seeing firefighters take care of this fire was something I will never forget. Even though this was a smaller wildfire, having one so close to town was crazy. At least we don’t have to worry about cheatgrass in the area for a while! ^_^;;

Misadventures

Bromus tectorum All Out Attacks: The Return of the Revenge

You probably heard of the annual plant known as Bromus tectorum: Cheatgrass. (Dramatic organ music momentarily playing in the background.) This grass has been a large problem for many interns and natural area managers. During a fire, this grass was a good source of fuel. This grass ignites when exposed to an extremely hot source such as a vehicle or a lightening bolt. If a fire was too severe, this grass would totally dominant the landscape the following year creating a monoculture of cheatgrass prone to more fires. The most irritating part about this grass were the seeds. Many times I would have to go through a field of cheatgrass. Eventually, my socks and shoes would be covered with seeds. These seeds could stick into your feet and ruin your socks.  The major issue was the transfer of seeds. I always had to clean the seeds off my shoes and socks, so they would not be transferred to a higher diversity site that did not have cheatgrass to begin with.

Thunderstorms All Over the Freakin’ Place!
Recently, there had been a large number of thunderstorms that entered the Burns, Oregon. These storms were very severe and caused numerous fires in our area. I noticed that there were two types of thunderstorms.

The first type of thunderstorm would be the slowly paced storm. Sometimes I would see a very menacing storm out in the field or at home, so I would quickly get all of my work done before the storm would hit. These storms would take forever to come. Instead of the five minute wait like in Chicago, the storm would take two hours to get to my present location. One time I was walking home and it started to rain out from the approaching thunderstorm. I walked quickly and found out the rain suddenly stopped. I turned around and saw the edge of the rainstorm slowly creep at me from down the street. I could actually out walk the storm and rain!

The other kind of storm would be the windstorm. This type of thunderstorm would produce very high winds and lightening. A couple of them rolled into town this year. They would produce duststorms with hail! So if you were caught in this storm…well run to a store or your car because getting dust in your eyes and getting hailed on would not be cool.

A typical dust hail storm traveling through Hines, Oregon.

John Day Fossil Beds and Blue Basin

I was about to go rock hounding in the Lakeview District, but after my previous flat tire incident while looking for sunstones made me nervous about the idea. While thinking the situation through, I decided to head northwards into the ponderosa pine forests of Oregon. When I was a kid, my parents took me to a place called John Day Fossil Beds, which was located an hour and a half away from Burns, Oregon. This place was amazing and helped me learn more about the Cenozoic Era when I was younger. I packed my lunch and left very early to go bird watching on my way to John Day Fossil Beds. Unfortunately, the white headed woodpecker still eludes me…

I finally got to John Day Fossil Beds. The topography and the rock formations were outstanding!!! After seeing almost four months of basalt, the sedimentary layers were welcoming to the eyes. There was a place near the visitor’s center called Blue Basin, where I took a small hike. This place looked very similar to Badlands National Park, but everything was a bluish-green color. Overtime, the deposited volcanic ash slowly turned into claystone. The blue color comes from the minerals that were leached into the claystone. With extensive erosion of the soft rock over a long period of time, the Blue Basin was formed. Blue Basin was an amazing site to see in terms of flora and rocks. There were many other locations in the national monument, but I had to return home. If you were into geologic time and enjoy taking pictures, John Day Fossil Beds and Blue Basin would be the place to go for an afternoon of adventure.

Blue Basin!!

Sponsored By: BRB: The Legendary BLM Milkshake of Choice

This CLM Blog is sponsored by the “BRB (Banana, Reese’s Cup, and Banana)” A BLM Legend’s Official Milkshake Flavor of Choice.

Where oh where to start.  This month has been very packed with events.  To start with the reason why we are here, seeds.  We have been collecting quite a bit, many of which we have to do multiple collections due to the seeds ripening in waves.  This can be frustrating because it means we have to check on the same populations relatively often.  We went through a fun time with sending out our first batch of fleshy fruits.  Since we are in a “remote” location according to FedEx, we have to call ahead in order to have our over night package picked up.  But you can not call over a day ahead and when you do call a day ahead they can not guarantee they will come to pick up unless they have a driving coming to the area to deliver a package.  This we all find out the hard way but in the end the package was shipped.  We were frustrated to find out that a buckwheat we had been watching for awhile actually went past collectable.  It had never been collected before, we know why now, so it wasn’t the end of the world we missed it.  Other than that collecting has been uneventful.  We are waiting on a few species still that are taking their sweet time.

Other news not so much related to seeds.  We have been seeing a lot of wildlife, which has been awesome.  So far we have seen: mule deer, coyote, black bear, bobcat, scorpion and great horned owls.  Some other fun activities we have had the privilege of partaking in include banding hummingbirds, mist netting bats and aiding a paleontologist on dinosaur digs.  These have been great not only because they are really cool and an amazing opportunity to meet new people and learn new things but also because it really helps to break up the seed collecting.

Until next month.

Working on invasive weeds in Alaska has been really enjoyable as there is still hope in preventing the introduction of many threatning weeds to the state. Last week, I helped organize a public weed smackdown volunteer event. Community members and agency workers came together on a Saturday to pull a large patch of Melilotus alba (White Sweetclover) that is growing at a roadside construction site in Glennallen, Alaska. The entire road is being re-paved and a biking path is also going to be paved there. The purpose of the weed pull is to prevent further spread of the plant by the construction company doing the road work. This event was the first ever collabrative project between the Park service, the Copper Basin Cooperative Weed Management Area, and Wrangell Institute for Science and the Environment. We pulled over 200 lbs of weeds in a little over 5 hours. We are hoping to have this be an annual event in order to reduce the seed bank.

Wrangell-St.Elias National Park is also trying to take a proactive approach to invasive weed management in Alaska. Last week I lead the first ever “Need for Seed” native public seed collection event in Kennicott, Alaska. The old copper mining site currently has many buildings under stabilization construction and many ground cover areas have been disturbed by machinery. The overall goal of this program is to create a native seed bank that the Park can use in re-vegetation projects after construction and also a seed bank avaliable for local residents. When re-planting within a National Park, it is required that the seed is collected within a 20 mile radius of where the seed will be planted, so we got to hike the trails in Kennicott and collect seed from the wild. A youth conservation corps group of volunteers came out for the week and I taugh them about plant propogation and general plant ecology. Some of the species of plants we collected seeds from were Lupinus arcticus, Geranium erianthum, Aster sibiricus, Delphinum, Polemonium acutiflorum, and Oxytropis campestris. Overall, I really enjoyed collecting seed and learning the several different stratification techiniques associated with different seeds in order for them to germinate and propogate properly. I am looking forward to more work like this in the future!

Lupinus arcticus seed at natural dispursal

Need for Seed collection volunteers

Morgan Gantz, Exotic Plant Management TeamWrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska

Hello Curious Readers,

This month, Carrie and I have been working on our main two tasks, collecting seed to use for the re-vegetation of the Rush Fire and monitoring Special Status Plants (SSPs). We searched for the candidate species Webber’s ivesia, aka wire mousetail, Ivesia webberi, at a location near Vinton, Ca, where it had been seen in the ’90s. We unfortunately could not find it. We have stumbled upon a couple populations of Susanville penstemon,  P. sudans, while searching for other SSPs and collecting seeds. 

The endemic Susanville penstemon grows in some unlikely places, including this rock outcrop at an elevation of 6,000 ft.

Beautiful outcrop on a slope near Babbitt Peak.

We collected seeds from Mountain Mahogany, Cercocarpus ledifolius var. intermontanus, on Horse Mountain, and Great Basin Wildrye, Leymus cinereus, in Secret Valley and near Willow Creek.

See the corksrew shaped tail? When the wind blows on the seeds, it drives them into the soil. The hairs on the seeds are also very irritating–they feel like insulation.

Basin Wildrye, the large clumping grass in this picture, was growing mostly on the steep slopes of the valley wall, making collection a little challenging!

We’ve assisted in some other projects, too, which have proven to provide great field experience. Last week Carrie and I helped Valda, Amy, one of our rangeland managers, and Derek, our rangeland supervisor, in completing surveys of AIM plots. I practiced my line-point intercept, canopy gap, and soil characterization while getting to experience the Horse Lake area in the cool, gray early morning. During the last week of July, Carrie and I assisted Missi, our wildlife biologist, Valda, our ecologist, Marilla and Sharynn, our archaeologists, and Clif, our fuels specialist, with a survey of the Jeffrey pine forest near Cleghorn Reservoir. The forest needs to be thinned to allow for saplings to grow and to prevent overly-destructive fires. But before treatment can occur, the units have to be surveyed for sensitive plant and animal species and habitat, archaeological artifacts and other aspects that could be damaged from the machinery and process of cutting down the trees. Surveying required long days of constant walking, but it was fun to spend time in the vanilla-scented forest—most of our field office is high desert—and I learned a few things: how to identify black bear scat, the call of a nighthawk, what a young red tail hawk looks like, how uncomfortable water-bars are to drive over, and dozens of plants.

On top of look-out near north Eagle Lake.

Deb

Alaska fieldwork is the best fieldwork: Invasive plant survey trip on the Pinnell Mountain Trail.

Loyal readers: as I sit here on the 25^th anniversary of my birth, reflecting on my summer as a Conservation and Land Management Intern for this, my final CLM Blog entry, I am consumed by a single and pervasive thought: this was the greatest summer of my entire life!!!

Innumerable fruits of my CLM experience; how shall I count thee? I gained tremendous insights into the nature of governmental conservation careers. I gleaned an intimate knowledge of the Taiga Biome, a region nearly entirely unknown to me a year ago.  I ascertained a much greater proficiency in many facets of botany, thanks to my mentor’s wealth of knowledge of the Alaskan flora. For all of these things, I am grateful. However, the single most wonderful outcome of my CLM Internship surely must be… graduate school! Thanks largely to experience and connections garnished through this program, this fall I will be beginning a MS in Biology, with a focus on entomology and systematics, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Alaska fieldwork is the best fieldwork part 2: Posing in front of an abandoned cabin on an invasive plant survey float trip of the Fortymile River.

After years of unrequited applications and inquiries, I finally feel that the career path I have envisioned for so long has been realized, and I will never forget the CLM Program’s key role in making it happen.

Signing off, for the last time, from the BLM District Office in Fairbanks, AK.

Thanks for being awesome, everyone.

Keep your stick on the ice.

Keep on keepin’ on.

Au revoir!

-Logan

Southern Utah is inhabited by several distinctive species, some of which are endemic to the southwest United States.  My co-intern Jake and I have done a lot of work focused on birds – raptors, sage-grouse and common birds found in riparian and sagebrush habitats. We took a break from various bird surveys to help out Cedar City’s Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) with a special rodent species, the Utah prairie dog (Cynomys parvidens).

Utah prairie dogs are endemic to southern Utah, and they are currently categorized as threatened on the endangered species list. Prairie dogs are a keystone species. The extensive burrows they create aerate soils and help moisture penetrate the soil, which is extremely important in this part of the world. Prairie dogs suffered serious persecution after settlers made their way to Utah, prompting federal protection from the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1972.

Utah prairie dogs have made a comeback in southern Utah, however, they have moved into populated areas. That is where the DWR comes in. Cedar City’s golf course and cemetery are full of Utah prairie dogs. And I don’t blame the dogs – there’s plenty of grass and water in these two areas, compared to the drought-stricken rangeland. Prairie dogs can also be found on private lots, digging up back yards and gardens. This does not fly with the general public, and the DWR has stepped up to humanely trap and translocate prairie dogs under the Iron County Habitat Conservation Plan.

Trapping prairie dogs is much harder than it sounds. For one, they are exceptionally smart rodents. They know what’s up after they see one or two individuals get caught. Despite the lure of a thick lump of fresh peanut butter and oats, a lot of prairie dogs stay away from the open traps. Instead, they might reach inside to grab the bait. One of the wildlife technicians I worked with said she witnessed a prairie dog dig underneath a trap to access the peanut butter. Some individuals though, just can’t resist the treat. After four days of trapping on the golf course, we averaged six prairie dogs a day. More would be caught at the cemetery, local baseball fields, and even the small Cedar City airport.

Cedar City’s golf course is full of Utah prairie dogs! This was just a small group. 

We assisted in processing the prairie dogs, which included weighing, determining sex, and piercing their ears with little silver ear tags for future identification. The prairie dogs are then transported to one of three recovery areas on federal land. While these areas might not be as green as a golf course, there is grass and water, and the DWR provides extra feed for the dogs that have been recently moved and are still accustomed to food-rich, man-made habitats.

The Awapa Range, a recovery area where we dropped off several prairie dogs. In the background you can make out some Utah prairie dog burrows.  

Spending time observing and handling these creatures was a real treat, and hopefully my fellow intern and I will get a chance to help the DWR again in the coming weeks. While Utah prairie dogs are not a popular animal in these parts, it is good to see the public and state and federal groups work together to help this species and land owners. It demonstrates on a small, local scale that conservation and economic growth can coexist.

This past weekend while trekking high in the Sierra Nevada, beneath massive slabs of granite turned to the sky, I couldn’t help but reflect on the past five months of my CLM internship.  It seems the grand vistas from high in the clear mountain air always give me a fresh view on life and its circumstances.  It always astonishes me how fast time goes past- how seasons turn and seasons change.  I suppose the theme of my time spent in northeastern California working as a wildlife intern in the Alturas Field Office – BLM could be “surprise.”  Things don’t always work out the way you foresee them unfolding, and even if the road takes some unexpected turns, it is in our best interest to integrate and learn from those experiences.

Looking back, I came into this internship with a single intention in mind.  And that was to immerse myself in a federal land management agency in order to better understand the internal workings and processes which lead to large scale land management decisions within the public domain.  I came into this internship having had the experience of working for a non-profit conservation organization.  I understood how these comparatively small institutions pour their heart and resources into issues which they feel are meaningful and worthwhile.  Coming in, I had experience working within an academic research paradigm.  I understood how universities and their affiliates design and implement research projects to better understand ecological processes.  It seemed that within my experiences there was a gap, and this gap was a lack of understanding of how governmental agencies at the federal and state level interact with one another to develop and implement land management decisions and practices.

Through the hectic field season it was at times difficult to keep this intention in sight and in mind.  It can be difficult to understand the implications of the work you’re completing in the field and how it fits within the larger framework of policy and land management.  It is a good practice to make these sorts of connections.  Looking back, I can say that I accomplished my single intention.  I learned a lot about how these agencies operate and interact with one another, I gained a new vocabulary, and I gained a fairly wide variety of experience in the interactions I had with the botanist, wildlife biologist, fire detail, and other specialists within the office.  Most of all I learned a lot about myself.  I gained clarity into what I need in order to successfully complete my professional duties. I learned a lot about the sort of work environment and community I desire to have around me.  And I learned how to better communicate these needs.  Not to mention, I got to experience a new part of the world and immerse myself in a new community.  All-in-all, an action packed and informative summer.

Until next time- from Northern California,

Phil Krening

Wildlife Intern

Alturas, CA – BLM

pkrening@gmail.com

Mt. Shasta from the Trinity NF (copyright Phillip Krening 2013) http://headwaters.sqsp.com

So far everything out here in Lockeford has been wonderful! I am really falling in love with the area and I really am enjoying what I do out here! I never would have thought about agricultural jobs before but that is such a big part of what the PMC does, and its fascinating and fun and a lot of hard work but I Love it! I’m now thinking about grad school for agronomy and I would love to stay here in the central valley to do it 🙂 hopefully that works out, because I have always been passionate about food and where it comes from and connecting people back to their food and this seems like a perfect way to fuse that interest with a career. I’m so thankful that I got this position!

The last several weeks here have been all about…you guessed it! CORN! We are part of a national soil health study and here in Lockeford we chose to grow sweet corn as a commodity crop to follow different blends of cover crops. It’s been really interesting and we have some cool data that has turned up already, but we will know even more in a few years as the study is repeated over the next 3 years. Its a big push to get people and farmers to start considering the soil in all of their actions because it is so critical to healthy ecosystems and a thriving agricultural industry! I am really hoping this can be an aid to farmers across the country. Until then we have aided a lot of the less fortunate in the surrounding community with all the corn we grew. We have spent hours and hours in the field picking the corn by hand since we don’t have a harvester. All that hard work went to help remove the grain and send it to several local food banks and nonprofit organizations who were in need and willing to use the corn. It was beautiful corn though, grow totally pesticide and herbicide free so it was healthy as well! In the end we donated over 2500lbs of corn and unfortunately we had more but didn’t have the man power to pick it all. Next year we are hoping to get people lined up a bit earlier to help harvest so we can get all of the corn harvested and sent out to people who need it most. I’m really happy all that hard work went to such good causes and I feel really fortunate to be a part of it.
Besides corn we have been planning out our fields and planting strategy for the fall planting coming up which will be super busy, so wish me luck! And the week after next I am going to Yosemite to collect seeds! I’m super stoked! It will be amazing!!!
Until the next time!

These past few weeks have been filled with lots of fish and plants (specifically milkvetch)! I did some of my first fish night work which involved surveying a stream in northern California with a flashlight searching for Modoc suckers. This turned out to be a pretty difficult task as the fish species that we were looking at were about as big as my thumb! Let’s just say I had to get pretty intimate with the fish to be able to identify them. Luckily, down the line my coworkers and I really got a feel for identifying the suckers based on their overall figure and how they moved in the water. I never really thought that I would really enjoy night work as I have always been a morning person but I have discovered that it is so much fun to be out during the night! You get to see and explore another whole new world and atmosphere when you’re out a night. It seems to keep you on your toes more and for me fills me with a bit of excitement and adrenaline. And another benefit is you can sleep in however late you want and have the daytime to get things done and it’s especially nice to avoid the heat in these hot summer months.

We are currently wrapping up our milkvetch surveys at our last field site. The five year monitoring plan is due this year to give an update on the status of Applegate’s milkvetch and determine whether it should still be listed as a threatened or endangered species. We’ve all been searching so hard for milkvetch this past week that sometimes when we close our eyes we can still see it! One of my coworkers even ended up dreaming about it!

Other than that, we have spent some more time in the Gearhart Mountain Wilderness monitoring the bull trout that we have PIT tagged. We have been walking up the streams with a mobile antenna to detect the PIT tags so that we can assess how far the bull trout travel up and down the stream. It’s always really nice to be working in the Gearhart as we get to camp in a beautiful place with some great hiking and birding opportunities. This past week we hiked up to a lookout in the wilderness where we had amazing views and found an adorable brown bat roosting at the lookout! It has been such a great time this summer with such great coworkers and amazing places to work!

Until next time.

My coworkers and I at the lookout!