Well the internship is coming to an end, and I’ve got to say I’m going to miss this job. I didn’t know what to expect when I was told I’d be going to Utah. To be honest, it was never my first pick for places to travel to, but once I met all the great people and saw all the beautiful country, I was set. I’ve made great friends, and had some spectacular adventures.

The view from Delano Peak (elev. 12,000 ft).

Over the course of this internship, I’ve watched fledgling eagles fly for the first time. I’ve surveyed and consulted the management of thousands of acres of wildlife habitat. I’ve electro-shocked, seined, and sampled through a myriad of the Virgin River’s fish. I’ve trapped and sampled from Utah Prairie dogs, an endangered species. And of course I’ve collected plants from all over southern Utah, and aided in the enrichment of its rangeland.

Excited to be in all the muck while surveying this riparian zone.

This internship was so diverse. The sheer amount of experiences I gained was fantastic, and I think it will play a huge role in my ability to succeed in this increasingly competitive job market.  I’m very grateful the Chicago Botanical Garden gave me this opportunity, and I hope the Cedar City BLM office has seen that through my work.

Good times with good friends.

Saying good bye to Big Indian Gorge

Time can be a complicated concept. The ticking hands of a clock concretely mark the seconds of a day, but that day can seem to last both an eternity and fly by in the blink of an eye. In this same way, it seems strange to be writing my final blog post today. Five months felt like forever in the beginning, but summer always ends too soon.

Astragalus whitneyi var. confusus seed pod, one of my seed collections

Regardless of time, this internship was jam-packed with learning experiences, all of them rewarding whether pleasant or otherwise. Here’s a short list:

-cardboard from your plant press and a tiny spade can get a monster truck un-stuck from wet clay

-always say yes! even if you’re terrified of public speaking, being seen & heard can lead to a job

-it can take a really long time to count to 10,000

-the world of botany is relatively small; anyone can become a networking wizard in no time

Erigeron compositus var. glabratus

This internship also provided me the opportunity to improve my botany skills. There’s no better way to learn than to sit in a meadow of wildflowers with a flora and a hand lens. I keyed all the plants I could, most of them charming little herbaceous guys. What a dream job! Working with the BLM collecting for Seeds of Success, I made voucher specimens (pressed plants) for all my seed collections.

A few of my 52 SOS specimens I mounted for the Portland State Herbarium

This gave me the opportunity to learn proper herbarium curation procedure. And, my voucher specimens will be housed at the Smithsonian! It was great fun looking at all the flowers I had pressed earlier in the season and creating (what I would consider) works of art. It’s too bad herbaria don’t showcase exceptional collections at museums with pieces by Picasso, Frida Kahlo, and Georgia O’Keeffe. 

making new friends

I believe my experience was different in the fact that I was a team of 1 in the field, but even so I met numerous like-minded people over the field season. Networking really was a large part of my internship, from my contacts at the Burns District BLM office, to the Oregon/Washington state office, the people I met through the Oregon Native Plant Society, touring the Bend Seed Extractory, meeting other CLM interns in Chicago, working with the Portland State Herbarium, and coordinating with Steens Mountain flora expert Don Mansfield. The more people I met, the clearer it became that the working (and retired) botanists all knew (or knew of) each other — and now they know me!

magical fairy land spring covered in Arnica mollis and monkey flowers (Erythranthe guttata & Erythranthe lewisii)

Working as a CLM intern has been truly excellent. If you are a recent graduate with any interest in plants, I recommend you apply. I am grateful that a CLM intern recommended I apply last year. My resume and skill set have grown exponentially while being able to make payments on my school loans (this internship pays better than most entry level field jobs I’ve found). Remember: say yes!

Before anything else, let me just say that if you the reader are an employer and looking for a highly competent wildlife biologist, look no further!

Alright now more realistically, that’s five months wrapped up. An adventure that was absolutely worth driving across the country. I was actually a little slow with getting this up. So I am now writing this in a Starbucks in North Carolina visiting friends.

I am extremely thankful for all of the experiences gained through my work with the BLM Prineville district. But if I had to limit the lessons learned down to a handful of tid-bits, it would be this:

1. Own up to your mistakes and you’ll learn more from it and faster. Especially when I first started working this summer, making mistakes was practically a habit of mine day by day. The worst moment was when I failed to write down directions to a specific site. I dumbly assumed that the roads would be easy to follow…they were not. This bold assumption making two of us marooned on dirt roads, unable to get to our site, with my coworker understandably considering strangling me when it turns out I never wrote down the directions. This leads me to-
2. Keep a notebook on your person. Credit to Kathleen for this one! She’s right. Always keep a notebook around, old school style. It happens all too often that people sporadically tell you valuable info at the worst moments. Those notebooks can be a lifesaver, or at least help you find difficult locations in rural Oregon!
3. I don’t know what the deal is with country songs, there’s nothing “fun” about driving a 4×4 through muddy roads. And if it is fun, then you’re not on a real dirt road or you’re an extremely dangerous driver. One of the two.
4. At the specific moments you feel like you’re falling into complacency…push yourself out of your comfort zone. I was falling a little to much into a routine of just hanging out at my apartment in September, so I forced myself to go backpacking in Rainier. And I wouldn’t trade that weekend for the world. Even if it poured rain and I was on my own, which leads me finally to-
5. Learn to be alone. There’s a world of difference between alone and lonely. I think too often in the past I used me being alone as an excuse not to do any adventures. And that’s stupid. I started to accept in Oregon that I may never be around here again, so let’s see it all while I can. Hiking alone is a skill that I think is fading away, and while it is nice to have other people join, I see nothing wrong with hiking in solitude so long as you’re smart about it-as in let others know where you are. With my girlfriend still on the other side of the country in North Carolina, I was certainly alone a lot. But that does not mean you have to be lonely, you just have to learn how to be alone, which in the overly connected world we live in today I think learning to be alone is vital sometimes.

I never cared for Dr. Seuss, but I do love “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” as it always alleviates my anxiety when life comes across as too much. So now, after driving across the country twice and countless adventures, I’m excited to see where I will go next.

Cheers,

Ben