I sit here typing this at the end of a day of hiking around looking for rare plants and weeds in the Carson City area, so I’m quite hungry and tired, but glad to have been outdoors for the day.  Since last blogging, the team has done a lot of new things.  We participated in two outreach events for Earth Day, got some ATV training, went to a pollinator class to learn about native pollinator management, and have done some fire transect monitoring.  A couple of us also participated in a grueling weed survey in one of our range allotments.  This area consisted of nothing but steep mountain sides, and we hiked it for about eight hours and found not a single weed in the allotment.  Good news, of course, but what a day that was!

I’m getting a lot of practice identifying plants in the area, but there’s still a lot to learn.  The field season is picking up, so we have many outdoor days to look forward to and hopefully many adventures ahead.  Now that spring is here, the desert is starting to heat up, but we have yet to experience the worst it has to offer.  Being from a hot, dry climate myself, I’m kind of used to this type of weather, but my teammates are definitely not.  I was honestly more worried about the snow in winter, so I guess we all have new challenges to deal with.

Good luck, Team Manatee!