Dear fellow CLMer’s –

I know I should hate ATV’s. And I do, I promise, scout’s honor! But…at the same time…I love riding on them. I can’t help it! I just do!

The other day the Ecologist and I headed out to North Delta for Land Health Assessment’s and we went to this small piece of BLM land snuggled between private with no public access and I had the..

BEST. DAY. EVER.

Or one of them anyway…I find myself saying that about most of my work days here, which is the best feeling in the world…and also the worst as my time here is slowly winding down.

ANYWAY! The manager of the ranch that we had to cross to get to the BLM land gave us a ride to the remote location on, you guessed it, his sweet ATV! Me and his amazing boarder collie Cheyenne became best friends, too. So between the ATV ride, Cheyenne, and the most beautiful fall day ever, I’d have to say it was a pretty perfect day.

And now, in celebration of fall, and also creativity which I feel is essential to all scientist, I will leave you all with a poem by the great E. E. Cummings.

a wind has blown the rain away
by E.E. Cummings

a wind has blown the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand. I think i too have known
autumn too long

(and what have you to say,
wind wind wind—did you love somebody
and have you the petal of somewhere in your heart
pinched from dumb summer?
O crazy daddy
of death dance cruelly for us and start

the last leaf whirling in the final brain
of air!)Let us as we have seen see
doom’s integration………a wind has blown the rain

away and the leaves and the sky and the
trees stand:
the trees stand. The trees,
suddenly wait against the moon’s face.

FALL! Snow’s in the mountains and while I don’t want this internship to end yet I can’t wait for ski season to start! Hope everyone is loving the change of weather as much as I am!

Brandee Wills
Montrose, CO
Uncompahgre Field Office