Wow, time has flown by. Only a few weeks ago I was still in college, I didn’t have a job, I knew nothing about sagebrush or junipers and I certainly had no idea where Alturas, California was located. I grew up in South Florida where both buildings and people are abundant. I attended college in Maine (Unity College) and fell in love with the state, the forests and the people. After graduating I really didn’t want to leave the beauty that is Maine, but like many others I understood that to get experience you have to be willing to go where the jobs are. This job just happened to be in Northern California.
After a 10 day cross country extravaganza, I finally rolled into Alturas. A bigger town than I went to college, but far from a metropolis. At the only blinking red light I veered left and found my way to a glorified warehouse, also known as the Alturas BLM field office. Mike Dolan, my mentor, then proceeded to introduce me to everyone in the office. Talk about overwhelming! I think one name stuck with me that day. I moved into a fire barracks about 20 miles south of town in an even smaller town called Likely where cows outnumber humans at least 3-1. My first few days continued that overwhelmed feeling. I’ll be honest, I was terribly homesick for trees and greenery and the Sage Steepe ecosystem did not impress me much. Since it rained/snowed for my first and second week I didn’t have much opportunity to explore. Instead, I spent hours staring at Herbarium vouchers trying to learn the native fauna. After my first month in Alturas my views and attitude towards the area has done a complete 180. While from afar all you can see is acres of sage and juniper, when you actually stop and look down there are tons of tiny flowering plants and patches of diverse grasses and bugs. Alturas is in a valley and to either side are mountains with towering Ponderosa and Jeffrey pine trees. Just south of town is the Modoc Wildlife Refuge which is home to hundreds of birds. Only an hour and a half north there is Lava Beds National Monument where you can see ancient lava flows. Driving two hours to the west there is Lassen National Park – another completely different ecosystem! In my tiny section of California life abounds!
Ancient lava flow at Lava Beds National Monument!
This past week about 50 other interns and I attended the CLM internship conference in Glencoe, IL. Here we participated in mapping and seed collection demonstrations. The setting for all of the lectures and demos was the Chicago Botanic Garden – a truly beautiful location. After listening to the Seeds of Success lecture I feel excited about doing seed collections as well as proud to be part of such a worthwhile program.
Like others have said before me, “I can’t believe I get paid to do this!”
Cayce Salvino
BLM – Alturas
Just one example of the beautiful tiny flowers that are scattered throughout the Sage Steepe Ecosystem.
This is the llama I saw my first day out in the field riding with the BLM Ranger. It was just wandering around in the sage.