After much scouting, monitoring phenology, and waiting we have finally collected seed. Since, I worked as a seed collector last year too one might think that I would be more accustomed to the less-than-predictable and uncontrollable nature of wildland seed collection. Yet, I am still constantly surprised when I look at my record of our daily activities throughout this summer just how much time we’ve spent scouting and monitoring potential collection site compared to how many seeds we’ve actually collected.

But now, finally, I am happy to report that we’ve made 6 collections this month. Don’t mind the fact that only 3 are likely to meet the 30,000 seed minimum requirement….

One of the collections, a collection of Golden Currant, is the prettiest picture I have from the whole month! I mean look at those veins.

But I have surprisingly no pictures of flowers this month that are blog worthy. A sign that the flowers are on their way out for the season? Already?

Recently, I’ve found myself missing flowers than I saw back in April and May (cactus blooms, my old friends) that I won’t be able to see again until next spring. The flowers that I saw on my first camping trip of the season where I hiked barefoot with my sweetie for 5 miles through a sandy desert canyon crisscrossing a stream that was coming back to life as the snowmelt from the La Sals resupplied its flow. The flowers that represent the reawakening of the natural world, where outside becomes inviting and beautiful again.

I’ve been noticing that the longer I do field work the more I track time based on the flowers that have passed, the flowers that are in bloom, and what flowers I can still expect to see later in the season. This work requires a heightened awareness of phenology and I have come to enjoy keeping time in this way. But what happens when the phenology isn’t noticeably progressing anymore, when everyone closes up shop to wait out the cold? As we come to a time where more of the flowers are behind us than ahead, I begin to confront the dread I feel for the impending winter season.

I’ve been attempting to prepare my brain to learn to appreciate what winter has to offer (what does winter have to offer?) since the beginning of the season, since the end of last winter really. I’ve noted things that I only spend time doing in the winter, clothes I only wear in the winter: the coziness of taking a bundled up walk along a frozen lake before coming home to our warm apartment, the comfort of then making hot chocolate and playing a board game.

But all of a sudden it’s looking like I won’t have to deal with as much of a winter for the next few years. I have been offered a permanent position in a mysterious location where winter doesn’t mean snow….will the growing season be longer? Will there be a chance to grow foods I’ve never been able to grow before? Will I be able to do my favorite summer activities for more of the year? Will sitting outside possibly even feel pleasant in January? So many things to wonder about and soon I will know the answers!

Boy was this a busy one. We started the month with monitoring the pollinator islands that were established in landing sites throughout the forest last year. One of the goals was, of course, to remediate the land that was cut down and compacted from tons of lumber. However, another goal was to essentially build a pollinator bridge – to bring the pollinators from the forest and encourage them to head down to the farms below. Our purpose was to perform line point intercept in order to understand how the landscape is changing after planting and seeding last year. The seed mix was a very long list of all the different native pollinator-friendly species in the forest and so far it seems like most of the plots are doing well. The hard part about seeds though is that it can be tough to judge the success in the first year because many seeds won’t come up the following season, and could possibly not come up for multiple years. So even if the seed success isn’t impressive the year after planting, that doesn’t mean the project is not a success in the long term.

We spent a while monitoring these 17 plots, but to break things up, we had a cross-over episode with the Beaverhead-Deerlodge botany team at the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. They taught us all about how to survey for bees – where to find them, how to catch them, and what to do with them after. This was also my first time backpacking!

From here, we did a bit of surveying. We focused on areas that have planned pesticide treatment, and we looked at historic populations that may be in the area. Although we didn’t find anything, we got some great views! Other than that we also worked on some timber seed pilot monitoring, where we looked at seeded skid trails and temp roads to see how the grasses are growing in. Most were pretty successful, with Bromus, Psedoroegneria, and Elymus being the most common. We have been working on a bunch of these plots in two finished timber projects, one on the west side of the forest, and one on the east side. So far, these plots have been quite promising, but we will see in thee coming years how the seed mix is working.

Last, but of course not least, we have spent days and days working on seed collection. We have collected about 30 different populations – most on the smaller side. There are still lots of plants that we are waiting to collect, but I’m surprised at the amount that we have found ready. I hope this next month we will get some larger populations!

Oh, August you could not get smokier if you truly tried (this is in fact not true at all as it’s supposed to get worse next month). Waking up to pillars of smoke covering the sky was something I wasn’t entirely ready to get used to when I moved out to Oregon. The AQI of the closest major city, Eugene, this past week reached a total of 450. Just to be clear, that measure is part of the maroon category also known to be hazardous to human health. The effects can certainly be felt.

Other than hazardous smoke conditions the Umpqua has been beautiful as usual. Everyday feels like a surprise in this forest. You never truly know what beautiful spectacle you’ll get to witness. Some of our collection sites are truly like working in a mirage. These incredible sites are surrounded by some of the most picturesque collection species. Not only this but most collection sites have a wide breadth of species to collect from. As we have a target list of around 30-40 species, these luscious meadows hold the key to most of our success. My personal favorite of these habitats are the hidden alpine meadows we’re to collect many of our September/October species from.

Our weed treatment adventure continues as well. One of the worst treatments so far occurred this past month. A couple of coworkers and I ventured out to the infamous Poo Lagoon (wastewater dumping site). The task at hand was incredibly daunting. The major focus here was the Common mullein which surrounded the multiple waste pools. Laced between these stands of mullein, however, were some of the vilest stands of Canada thistle imaginable. These low-lying pests numbered in the thousands hidden underneath the water-fed grasses. As well, since Canada thistle is rhizomatous, we were not allowed to just pull and move, we had to individually cut each stem with hand loppers. If fire restrictions were not at their strictest, we might have been able to use brush cutters. Coupled with this was the 105 degrees heat that made it incredibly difficult to function. But we all made it out alive and that’s all you can truly ask for.

Personal events this past month saw my mental health slightly deteriorate. It’s truly a shame of the personal struggles because this experience has been nothing short of incredible. Unfortunately, sometimes you can’t control the events that unfold. These events leave you feeling absolutely abandoned in a place that was already foreign to begin with and all you can do is try to dig yourself out of the hole that makes you feel so powerless. It’s difficult but you have to do it because you can’t keep living your life in the gallows of past events. You must push through it because nobody else will do it for you. Sometimes life just hits you with the hardest metal pipe to the knees unexpectedly. You fall and have no choice but to get back up, of course after feeling the immense amount of pain from the initial hit for a considerable amount of time. Eventually you’ll get back up from being beaten and the pain will progressively get easier to handle, although it will always linger. This is just a roundabout way of saying that unfortunately life can be incredibly unfair, but most of the time you can’t control it. You just have to keep going until it gets better.

I truly hope each intern had an incredible month. For those who finished their term this month, congratulations. For those that are still along the journey like Casey and I, only a few more months until it’s over. Make the best of the time that we have with these incredible opportunities.

First seed shipment to Coeur d’Alene Nursery

I am writing this monthly post while holed up in the community library hiding from a storm that seemingly came out of nowhere. The minor flooding and landslides are the price paid for relief from the wildfire season that was reaching its peak when broken just in time. The smoke and oppressive heat previously settling over both forests is gone for the time being, but now we wait for the roads and woods to dry before resuming our search. With only three viable collections left in the field we have transitioned back again into primarily scouting. The summer has passed and fall colors have begun to set in on the lowest and most productive sites. The Council team is now searching further, higher, and more intensely for remaining target species. It has become clear that some of our target species will not be successfully collected this year. To combat the difficulties of the situation our mentors have given us permission for recollections of species already targeted, and independence in determining additional species for collection. The new policies have allowed our team to target Columbine flavescens, start scouting western-coneflower for collection, and recollect a superior population of Columbia needlegrass. The added diversity will help us remain productive as our season progresses. Disease like the fungus pictured above, and pests like the mormon crickets on our lupine would have been intimidating setbacks for me at the beginning of the season. Now, these problems seem more and more manageable as I gain experience and familiarity with the two forests I am assigned to. As I look at the reddening maple outside the window, I see the branches oscillating with the gusts and leaves shuttering. Soon the tree will stand motionless again, and the Boise – Payette team will be back out and searching.

Thus far, August has been the most profitable month for seed collection. We are finding that most of our populations are nearly ready, already collectable, or past at this point in the season. This makes for two quite scattered seed collectors! It’s difficult to be in many places at once, and seemingly more difficult to make a decision about where is the most profitable place to spend our days. Of course, there is some rhyme and reason to it all; we consider the location of the population (elevation, moist/dry area, shaded or exposed), the timing of flowering/seeding of other populations in the area or other populations of the same species, and which populations to prioritize based on size/profitability as well as species we may have already collected enough populations. Despite knowing to consider all these different factors, it is still possible we may make the wrong call, simply as a result of the highly variable landscapes that exist in and among the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forests.

We do not, however, let this get us down!

We are professionals in our field with the knowledge that each of us is doing the very best that we can to accomplish this incredibly important work we have been called to do. We work with the knowledge that there is no ‘one size fits all’ for this type of work, as there are many factors out of our control, especially as we make our way into fall and the rainy season.

In an effort to combat these highly variable factors and put our knowledge as native plant materials collectors to good use, we have called on some backup. Fortunately for us, the Wildlife crew that works out of the same office as us has had a bit of a lull in work between projects at the very moment that we are experiencing the height of our season. It has been awfully convenient to the point that I wonder if maybe it was planned this way by our very experienced boss. In reality, I think luck would just have it that way. Regardless, this recruitment of even just two (sometimes four) extra individuals really increases the flow and productivity of our work. Typically, my counterpart and I will split up and each take one to two extra individuals with us to separate locations/populations that are in need of collection. This allows us to cover more ground in a timely manner, taking advantage of ripe seed crops as they become available, because, well, they don’t typically wait!

This addition of extra help is wonderful because we can get more done in a day, however, this is just a small portion of the extent to which this supports our efforts. I also find this addition helpful because it requires us to explain to other very thoughtful and considerate people the ins and outs of collection. Not only does this reiterate the requirements and the procedure for me again, but teaching others about this process inevitably brings up questions or comments from those learning, and gives me another perspective with which to look at the collection scenario at-hand. This is especially helpful when working with our crews here at the Belt Creek Ranger Station because each of them are incredibly attentive and committed to providing their services to the best of their abilities. They are advocates for the forest and its many inhabitants and care deeply for their vigorous persistence into the future. Truly inspiring and thought- provoking individuals alongside whom I am so very delighted to work.