The first month of my time in Arcata, CA has been a real trip. After a half week of safety training in the office, I shipped out to Chicago for the CLM workshop. The workshop offered lots of intensive learning opportunities, the most pertinent of which was on the Seed of Success Program. Since I was relatively new to the internship, I was previously unfamiliar with the program. There was much discussion about the program’s history – dating back to the Royal Botanical Garden’s initial request for seeds. Now seeds are being kept in national seed banks and are reproduced for use in restoration projects- right on!
After a week of pampering in Chicago, I returned to the beautiful redwood country where I work. I dove right into getting to know the lands our field office manages, with the guidance of my botanist mentor, Jennifer Wheeler. I was soon on my own to guide, supervise and work with groups of California Conservation Corps members. We spent time pulling the invasive French Broom, in areas where it was threatening crucial native plants/habitats. Working with these kids is a great experience, most of them are my age, which allows us to connect really well. It is also refreshing to do some real physical labor.
When my mentor took off for two weeks, I was left with a “to do” list. This was perfect for me, I was able to write my own schedule, while also figuring out how to do all the things on the list… the best way to learn. I became familiar with the Trimble JUNO GPS unit and how to run the National Invasive Species Monitoring System (NISMS) so I could record locations of and treatments applied to various invasive plant species. I was also lucky enough to work with other members of the resource staff in our office, including the forest ecologist and the fisheries biologist. We worked in the famous Headwaters Forest Reserve, flagging thinning units, and in the beautiful King Range, sampling invertebrates. I was also fortunate to work with the CCC again pulling invasive European Beach grass and Yellow Lupine in the coastal sand dunes. What a treat to get to work at the beach! So far soo good.