Since the field season ended a few weeks ago I have been in the office working on various winter projects. One of my main tasks is to set up our new herbarium. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the herbarium at the University of Montana to get a better idea how to process and catalog different plant specimens.  The collections manager at the herbarium was nice enough to show me how to process and catalog different types of plant specimens. Altough our herbarium here at the BLM is much smaller it will be a great resource to have. I am also working on a sensitive and rare plant field guide for next field season,  which will help everyone out in the field to identify and document any sensitive plant species on BLM land. Although I have been working in the office I did get a chance to go out in the field last week. I got to tag along with a few of the foresters to go check on a thinning project that just started. I was really surprised to see how great the project looked, they were taking mostly dead lodgepole pine out of an old growth stand of douglas fir. I also got to see how they fell and buck the trees with big pieces of equipment called feller bunchers. Overall it was a really great experience to see how the process of thinning works and how it can be done in a sustainable way.  I learn something new everyday, this experience has been so awesome and I am grateful to be here for the next two months!