I’m officially done with my internship, I worked some pretty crazy hours during those last 3 weeks but I finished my hours and I’m comfortably sitting in Aurora, Colorado right now and soon I’ll be flying home to Buffalo, NY. This internship was a really great experience, I did what I expected plus a ton more; bird banding, bat mist-netting, a paleontology dig, endemic plant monitoring, and even camped out in the field and helped remove Russian olive for a week. For being an SOS internship, It really was unexpectedly wide ranging.

Another great experience was living somewhere different from what you’re used to, with people different from what you’re used to, away from your friends, family, and girlfriend. It wasn’t always easy but it gave me a lot of time to work on everything I wanted to do with very few distractions and no excuses. While out here in Utah, I got to know myself a little better and or at the very least became a little less wrong about who I think I am. I highly recommend taking any chance you can to move out of your comfort zone. It makes it easier when you know it’s only temporary but who knows, maybe you’ll like it so much you want to stay. As for me, I’m on to the next place, wherever that is.

Since being back at work since the furlough, I have been busy entering data into the different databases. It has been a long process, but I have learned a lot along the way. Currently, my mentor and I are looking for sagebrush collections before I leave in the beginning of summer. We are hoping to get at least one collection in, but it has been fairly rainy/snowy here the past week and has made things very difficult.

This past week, I had the opportunity to talk to the BLM managers and higher-ups about my internship and why it is good to have interns to help out on the District. It was a little scary presenting to them, but it was good to see that there is genuine interest to keep entry level younger people coming into the office to learn and gain experience.

Overall, the next couple of weeks will go by fast, and it will be bittersweet to move on to my next adventure; but sad leaving behind great people that I learned so much from. I’m always awed by the landscape and the opportunity to come out West.

The seed collecting season has finally come to an end.  Upon reflection, the last several months, working with the BLM in Medford, Oregon, has been an excellent opportunity to use my skills and knowledge, as well as gain a tremendous amount of valuable new experiences.

One major area of growth was my understanding of the geography of Southwest Oregon. Although I made good use of my previous knowledge of botanically interesting areas, I also had the experience of visiting and working in a great number of amazing new locations. As recently as six months ago, I had not even heard of King Mountain, Big Elk Meadow, Drew Lake, Walch Fen, and Josephine Creek. It is now difficult to imagine a world without such places.

Darlingtonia fen above Josephine Creek

Instrumental to the discovery of many of the new locations was GIS. I began the season with a good background in GIS, and was pleased to be encouraged to utilize and improve my skills in my new position. I was provided with ArcMap software, and used the technology to select promising new locations, track routes traveled and sites visited, and record locations of collected vouchers and seed. GIS also made easy work of obtaining and recording ecoregion and geology data for each seed collection. It was also fun to make use of the relatively new, data driven pages feature, to make a nice final set of maps, showing all of the season’s seed collection locations. I felt fortunate that, through my internship, I was given access to ESRI online tutorials, as well as USFS webcast classes.

Also, botanically, I had plenty of opportunities to build upon my prior knowledge. While for some time, I have been able to recognize plant families and most genera by sight, this past season afforded me plenty of opportunities to practice keying plants. The vast floral diversity of  Southern Oregon continues to surprise me, and presented our team with many interesting challenges. Some of the most perplexing, were a couple members of the family Asteraceae, as well as the genus Perideridia. Other botanical highlights included encountering rare plants such as Calochortus howellii, Gentiana setigera, and Perideridia erythrorhiza. Working with the CLM program has also allowed me the honor of having many of this season’s botanical vouchers placed with the U.S. National Herbarium at the Smithsonian Institution.

Deer Creek, Josephine Co., Ore.

This past season with the CLM program has given me many challenges and rewards that I will fondly remember for a long time to come.

With a continuation of conducive field weather, I’ve had the opportunity to help out with a mix of projects. The larger, longer lasting ones have been through fuels and wildlife. With fuels, I’ve carried on with cutting and stacking sticks to form piles worthy of our fuels ecologist’s approval. She can crack a whip like it’s nobody’s business. Gotta love her for it, though. When you see a side by side of someone’s careless, shoddy stack next to a sturdy, compact stack that will burn the first time, you’ll see the difference. It saves the BLM money and resources, too.

With wildlife, I helped with a sage-grouse habitat treatment project. This project basically entails cutting juniper trees down that are migrating outside of deep draws (waterways) and into sage-grouse habitat. The BLM was able to host Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) volunteers to assist with saws and well-needed backbone. Their assistance gave the BLM a chance to reclaim an important corridor for sage-grouse populations to flow between Wyoming and Montana. Fighting the good fight for a potentially listed species.

I saved the saddest part for last, mostly because it’s the most affecting. Two of the interns have left town in pursuit of bigger things. Like all wonderful things (sunshine, fresh seafood, and monarch butterflies just to name a few), they had to set, rot, or fly to Mexico respectively. They were both awesome, and I’m so happy I had the chance to meet them. Sometimes you wish you had more time, but our universe doesn’t care about your wishes. All you can do is reflect on the great times you’ve had and move on to find more. I hope to see them again.

Two interns left to dominate Buffalo. Let’s see if we make the local newspaper. Well… until next time.