After monitoring many fires through fields of cheat grass (Bromus tectorum), tumble-mustard (Sisymbrium altissimum), and charred pinyon pine (Pinus monophylum), we set up our last and final fire monitoring plot. This week, we finished our last fire monitoring plot. As we finished up our last plots, westward blowing afternoon winds rushed through the valley towards our fire monitoring plots, bringing with them walls of thick smoke from the King Fire in California. The King Fire is a large fire that is currently burning east of Sacramento and Lake Tahoe and has been burning for almost two weeks now. As of September 24, the fire was 38% contained and had burned over 90,000 acres. Although this fire is no threat to the Carson City district, the westward blowing winds blanket the Washoe and Carson Valley with a thick layer of smoke. Often visibility has been reduced so much that it is impossible to see adjacent mountain ridge lines.

A plume of smoke rises more than a mile into the sky across Lake Tahoe.

The sun shines orange as it barely is seen through a thick cloud of smoke from the King Fire in California

A majority of my last month of field time has been dedicated to Intensive Stream Monitoring in The Bodie Hills Wilderness Study Area. It has been a unique and adventurous process to locate monitoring plots that have not been read in over 30 years. I have become familiar with the use of a metal detector as a field tool, and am now more understanding of the placement of rebar as permanent plot makers. These plots have been useful in the development of my cross country land navigation skills, use of maps over GPS units, ability to find a location using 1, maybe 2, old photographs and hand drawn plot schematics. Many of these plots required multiple miles of hiking to get to, thus they also allowed me the opportunity to spend a few nights camping in the Bodie Hills, something I have wanted to do all season. Overall stream monitoring has been a nice way to culminate my field season and has taught me a variety of new techniques and skills, as well as taken me to some remote places to scout/collect native seed.

Every time I submit my timesheet, I get to watch the hours remaining in my internship tick down towards zero. 6 weeks left. 5 months seems like a nice long time when you’re getting started, but by the time you’ve settled into your new home, made friends, joined the softball team or whatever, there’s almost no time to enjoy it. Time to start looking for something new. I suppose it’s probably still a little early, blogwise, to start reflecting but these last six weeks are going to be spent thinking continuously about the end, and the vast, empty space beyond it. It’s the curse of the early twenties; the daunting uncertainty of complete freedom. The cliche is “I don’t have anywhere to go!”, but that’s the opposite of my problem; I have everywhere to go. I can pack everything I own in my car and drive as far as my will can take me. That should be exciting but to me it just feels scary right now. Every decision and its impact on the person I am becoming is painfully evident to me, and I’m tempted to run away to some remote corner of the world and forget about building a career for a little while. I imagine I’m not the only twenty-something that feels this way.

For now, though, I should enjoy what time I’ve got left in Cedar City. I still haven’t gotten bored of driving out into the middle of nowhere, glancing down at my GPS, then looking up to see a nighthawk bursting out of the brush, walking ten miles of seemingly invariant desert, or even just sitting down and taking it all in for a while.

I’m glad I’ve got 6 weeks of that to look forward to.

Our 36 collections are at Bend and our work is done! We drove the whole lot up to the seed extractory and took a tour. We even got to see our fleshy fruit collections cleaned and dried. They use really neat equipment to shake, rattle and roll the seeds into a nice, clean lot. In a warehouse, there are sacks full of conifer cones that need to be turned everyday to dry properly before they heat them to pop the seeds out. What a cool job! It was amazing to see where our months of hard work ended up and the excellent care the people at the extractory give to our seed collections.

There were many disappointments in our efforts this season, but this had mainly to do with the incredible drought that has oppressed the area. We only had two grass seed collections but had better luck with sedges.

Working with the BLM has been challenging. I’ve learned how hard it is to be a leader, and that being a good leader is important to me but I often struggle with how to do it. Doing the right thing well is often difficult. I’ve also learned that I can do botany 24/7 without getting sick of plants. I can ID the deadest, driest plant with confidence. I will take everything I’ve learned with me and become a stronger scientist and better field crew member where the next chapter begins.

I’ve had a great season but I am ready to move on and be with my adventure partner. For the next 6 months, I will be volunteering with Death Valley National Park doing botany and wilderness restoration projects. I’ll be living out of a 10-foot pop-up in the hottest, driest and lowest place in North America. 50 species of endemic plants and great hiking await!
I have to thank my partner Anna, mentor Ian and Megan Haidet and Krissa Skogen for the opportunity to work in this amazing place. Farewell!

Old volcanoes

Lucy Landis
Lakeview BLM

Hello again from the San Juan Islands National Monument.  The seasons are changing here as they assuredly are everywhere else.  Here the transition means finding your rainboots and collecting your favorite rain jacket from the back of the coat closet (then finding your second, third and fourth favorite rain jackets wherever they may lie).

ripening apples are yet another sign of fall

It means pushing back the ice cream maker back on the highest shelf of the kitchen cabinet and restocking your tea collection.  It means not having to fight the horde of tourists for the last package of hot dog buns at the small grocery store.  You get the picture.

autumnal landscape outside my house on Lopez Island

Working as a botany intern in a small office, fall means no more data collection in the field, pages of colorful excel sheets with long tabulations, and report writing, lots of report writing.  For the past five months, I have been working on a project collecting baseline information about plant communities in the newly designated San Juan Islands National Monument.  The monument was created in part to preserve and enhance the natural/scientific value of the landscape.  My project aims to collect information useful in planning processes which will determine how to best follow that mandate.  With the guidance of J. Vacca in the Wenatchee, WA field office as well numerous people within the BLM and the San Juan Islands community, I determined the monitoring protocol for this project and completed 53 plots on 8 islands. For each plot I did a Line-Point Intercept survey, photo point monitoring, and a species inventory survey.  Now I am analyzing my collected data and generating a report of my findings.

I pass this dilapidated boat house each day on my route to work. In the foreground are some pearly everlastings, Nootka rose, and Kentucky bluegrass.

Through the process of planning, field work, and data reporting, as well as through a variety of other projects, I have met an incredible group of people, all extremely knowledgeable and passionate.  I couldn’t be happier with the people I have worked with and the projects I have been a part of during my time here.