Though I graduated more than a month ago, any notions of leaving education behind me have been swept away by my first few weeks on the job here at the BLM office in Carlsbad, New Mexico. This post’s word is LEARNING.
Just last week I joined sixty of my peers, summoned from the far corners of America’s public lands, for a training workshop at the Chicago Botanic Garden. I wondered what training there could be that would apply equally to me as to counterparts, say, on the Oregon coast, but the CBG delivered. I was grateful for a crash course in plant family ID, which formalized smidgens I have picked up in the field. It was also great to hear the history of the CLM program, but even better to hear why we matter. For me the week led up to the story of Sand Mountain, a BLM site east of Carson City where CLM interns’ grunt work was the foundation for an agreement to safeguard the Sand Mountain blue butterfly.
My Sand Mountain is the deep sand country east of Carlsbad, where the focus of my internship is an AIM study at 24 sites. My part in the Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring is a series of vegetation transects coupled with species richness surveys and soil stability tests. Transects are fun, especially the challenge of plant ID. It has been tough wrapping my brain around the conversion between the environments of western North Carolina and southeastern New Mexico. A smattering of what I’ve had to learn:
Oaks are: (NC) majestic giants reaching several stories above you. (NM) groundcover.
Grasses are: (NC) demure and wispy. (NM) some of the biggest, meanest, toughest plants around.
Don’t touch the plants, because: (NC) you could hurt them! (NM) they could hurt you!
Sandspurs are a painful problem: (NC) at the beach. (NM) everywhere.
Rain is: (NC) a refreshing end to a warm summer day. (NM) a rumor, nothing more.
Herpetologists study: (NC) huge salamanders. (NM) hugely controversial lizards.
Cows walking in the middle of the road are (NC) unheard of. (NM) typical field work day traffic.
Dead plant matter will (NC) promptly decompose into compost. (NM) sit there forever awaiting a fire.
Besides the AIM studies I’m being sent to lots of other range and wildlife projects around the office, wherever help is needed. We’ll see how it all goes and I’ll share in future posts.