Winter is rapidly setting in and it feels as if it has been nudging me out of the field and back into the office.  Well the weather isn’t solely to blame for this, it is also due to my appointment coming to an end and needing to catch up on miscellaneous office work that I have put off for the past 8 months and working on the SOS end of the year wrap up.  But I like to think of if more as the forceful winter chill laying down its icy fist and forbidding me from collecting anymore seeds…

My time working for the Medford, OR BLM is rapidly coming to an end.  It has been a great season of opportunity for me to expand my botanical knowledge and learn about how difference agencies function, bureaucratically as well as biologically.  I gained valuable skills pertaining to surveying, report writing, and communicating with the public as well as other employees within the agencies, all while upholding a professional demeanor.

I spent over 3 weeks in October leading a crew of 8 convicts in a reseeding project of a burnt up forest.  We reseeded some BLM plots within the 36,000 burn zone.  We successfully reseeded over 1,100 of those acres, using  over 14,000 pounds of native grass and forb seeds.  This was a great learning experience both being a crew leader, as well as working with convicts.  This may have been the most enjoyable project I have worked on since starting this internship.  I definitely feel it was the most enriching, granting me an opportunity that I don’t think I would otherwise have been able to experience. This project did not only help me gain people skills but I also utilized some scientific method by setting up 50 picture plot points in order to to back for the next few years and monitor the successes of the project.   It is too bad I won’t be around to watch these grasses grow!

Greetings fellow interns,

Another lovely California central valley winter has begun.  I have really gotten used to the pleasant 60-70 degree days.  It will be quite the shock returning home to the Midwest over Thanksgiving, where highs have been consistently in the 10-20 degree range.  I will be packing every article of clothing I own (and hand warmers).  Christmas visits are pretty much out of the question except via Skype.

I am still primarily working on permitting for a large scale restoration project I have been tasked with.  This project seems to require every permit known to man (federal, state and county).  I have, however, had the opportunity to work on some side projects.

Last fall, my mentor was informed that there was a machine shed style building on a parcel of land within our field office jurisdiction that was going to be torn down.  It seems that the parcel had been leased for several  years by an educational institution while they were conducting research in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.  They had the building constructed during that time.  After the lease and research had concluded the building was left in place, with no plans for removal.  Due to BLM policies, the building needed to be removed prior to taking control of the property once again.  As the Preserve I work for is constantly searching for space to store and protect our equipment, we saw an opportunity to prevent the unnecessary waste of a perfectly good structure and provide more much-needed storage space for our facility.

With a crew of four guys we deconstructed the entire building in two 12-hour days, loaded it on to a trailer, hauled it to the Preserve, and unloaded it into storage.  This fall a new cement pad was poured at the Preserve where the new structure was to be installed, and in October of this year, we rebuilt the building.  We had no instructions, and lots of pieces.  Based on the pictures we took prior to deconstruction, and a numbering system we used to mark the pieces, we were able to reconstruct the shed in about 3 days.  We are still waiting for new skylight panels that we had to order and a few final steps to complete the building, but for the most part the construction process went very smoothly!  It was a great opportunity to learn some basic construction skills.

Stay warm-

Things have been winding down a bit here in Susanville.  The field work has slowed down and my extension has begun.  I have been working on several different projects recently, helping out different employees at the Eagle Lake Field Office.  I helped install a soil monitoring data tower with the hydrologist/soil scientist and folks from the NRCS.  This tower uses solar energy to power several instruments that measure air temperature, soil temperature, wind speed, soil moisture, and air pressure.  The tower then sends the data back by bouncing signals off the tails of meteors!  I had no idea that meteor tails could be used in place of satellites, but this technology is great for gathering data in remote areas where satellite signals aren’t reliable.

I also finished up packaging and shipping out all of the SOS collections I made this year.  It was bittersweet to send out the final box, knowing I won’t be collecting seed anymore.  Some of the best days of the internship were spent collecting seed; it can be relaxing and productive at the same time.  However, I now have a lot more space in my office cubicle with all the boxes of seed gone.

With field work slowing down, I have been spending a lot of time using ArcMap to complete various projects and make maps for other employees in the office.  It isn’t as exciting as field work, but my skills in ArcGIS have greatly improved over the course of this internship.

In my spare time I have gone on a lot of cool adventures recently.  I hiked to the top of Sonora Peak in the Sierras, went to Santa Cruz to see Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit Concert, and took a trip up to Enterprise, Oregon.  Every weekend has been a new adventure with great friends.  I thought coming to a small cow town in the middle of nowhere would be pretty boring, but I met a great group of people and have traveled to some awesome places.  I am truly grateful for the friends I have made and the times we have shared.

I will leave off with some pictures from the last few weeks.

Bighorn Sheep on the way to Enterprise

Sunset over the Pacific in Santa Cruz

Spelunking in some caves near Eagle Lake

Old ranch building

View from the top of Sonora Peak

Sam Gersie

BLM Eagle Lake Field Office

Susanville, CA