Public outreach and weed management

Here is another month of action in Arcata, CA. This month brought some new topics and activities, mostly relating to public outreach. The Humboldt county fair happened through the middle of August and as the BLM is a chief member of the Humboldt county Weed Management Area (HWMA), we set up and manned the HWMA’s booth at the fair. The booth featured lots of information on many of the common and most invasive weeds in Humboldt County. It also included vases full of examples of these plants, so the public could see them up close and personally. My mentor and I set up and maintained the booth, which involved keeping our selection of cut invasive plants looking fresh and beautiful (ironically enough). I also had the pleasure of manning the booth, which turned out to be quite fun. Many visitors were interested in the booth and asked loads of questions regarding various weeds they have in their yards. Some of the weeds we had put on display people did not realize were invasive, so it was good to educate them on the various negative effects these plants have on the landscape.

We also led a public hike to Red Mountain, which is part of the South Fork Eel Wilderness, which is home to numerous rare, endangered and endemic plants due to its serpentine soils. There were a variety of people on the hike with a range of botanical knowledge. Some of them just wanted to go for a hike in a beautiful place, while others wanted to know the name of every plant they saw. And as usual, when you go on a walk with a bunch of plant folks, things move very slowly. Given Red Mountain’s geographical situation and that it is surrounded by private land, it is not accessible to the public and we need the neighbor’s permission to enter. There is only one neighbor that will actually allow us to cross their land to Red Mountain.

Thunderheads forming over the mountains

I have also been swamped with seeds this month. Everything is ripening right now, so I’ve been collecting rather frantically. I think I made seven collections of 10,000+ seeds each this month bringing my total number of collections for the year up to twelve. Since I am a one-man collecting team, and some of the species can be quite tedious to collect, I have spent many days collecting seeds recently. I did get some help from one of our law enforcement officers, who came out with me as part of his homework to work with the resource staff and learn about the resources and land he is protecting. It was certainly an educational experience for both of us, as spending the day with a cop is something I’ve never done. He has to be in a completely different mindset than the rest of us “normal-folk” – always looking for the “bad-guys”.

I collected seeds from the Oregon gumweed (Grindelia stricta) along Seven Mile Beach. Not a bad spot to make a collection.

There has also been lots of fires up here in Northern California, so much of our office’s resource staff has been called into these fires as resource advisors. This has also caused lots of smoke to blow in and out of the areas where we work. Fire certainly is a hot topic around these parts right now…

The time is flying by here in Arcata, I took a vacation at the end of the month to do some backpacking in the mountains NE an SE of here, which were epic trips. I ‘m happy to have ended up in such a great location that has so much to offer.