The month of August has proven to be a slow one. With evasive monsoons, we haven’t had enough water to sustain life. But, we have done our best to chase down rain in search for signs of life and seeds! In the meantime, my partner and I have had the opportunity to assist on different projects: rangeland health assessments; help well-known botanist collect plant samples for his herbarium (and some for the BLM office of course); explore the wetlands and dry lands of the Carson National Forest with former Forest Service employees.
The sporadic rains of August were enough to aid in seed production and the end of August/beginning of September looked more promising in terms of collecting. We have made a couple of good collections with even more on the horizon. Of course the last few weeks weren’t all about work. We made time to play!
Last month I turned one year older and one year wiser. Even though my friends and family are on lands far away, the people here helped make the day very special. I gifted myself a road trip to Oregon to visit a group of friends. We spent Labor Day weekend in the Three Sisters Wilderness surrounded my wild blueberries and huckleberries and a panoramic view of the mountains and a serene Alpine lake. The hike in was tough (funniest and worse part was being ambushed by ground nesting bees because I accidentally stepped near their nest…whoops) but as usual the journey was worth the reward. Last Friday was United Way sponsored Day of Caring. A few of us from the office spent the morning painting the ceiling of a children’s learning center. It was such a wonderful day to service the community! Then again, what day isn’t? Last but not least I finally got to experience a real thunderstorm. It has been consistently raining for hours; it started yesterday afternoon and has continued through to this morning. Hopefully the water will bring new life and didn’t wash away the seeds!