Bring on the Rain

Trees!

Rain!

I’ve officially spent multiple days in the two things that make me happiest!

Look! Trees! In the distance! Soothes my displaced PNW soul.

Grand Tetons, looking across Jenny Lake. So dramatic and beautiful if really quite cold.

Fall seems to have hit Wyoming early this year. Suddenly, attempting to make our last few seed collections is becoming difficult. We should have had a natural lull between our grasses and forbs and our shrubs but now we struggle just to get into the field. Everything is too sodden. Constant rain and thunderstorms have practically stopped all field work (well, thunderstorms and my sinus infection; goodbye 2-year, illness-free streak). Can’t have soaked, moldy seeds and can’t drive on clay roads in the rain. Can’t really function with your head on the floor or feeling like it should be although you swear you’re sitting upright.

However, as our mentor likes to say “the seeds come first.” So, in the last weeks we’ve finished 18 collections, have one partially complete, all data sheets are up-to-date and all information is written in standardized format, half our collections are shipped, and everything is verified. Now, if it will only pause in the unseasonable rain and let us finish our last Psoralidium lanceolatum, Elymus elmoides, Geranium richardsonii, both our Krascheninnikovia lanata, and both our Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus collections we will only have to wait for our Artemisia collections and we will be done!

I do love grey, stormy weather, I do love rain, but this is August. I just want to finish those collections so we can help with new projects. For example: next week we get a rare break to take two days to help the fisheries biologist survey Muddy Creek, an area of special interest as it is prime habitat for four fish species endemic to the Colorado Basin; Colorado River cutthroat, bluehead sucker, flannelmouth sucker, and roundtail chub. Coal and natural gas development in the area cause huge amounts of waste water that has not always been properly disposed of, often making its way into the riparian system. Agricultural runoff, grazing, and a naturally high sediment load further stress this watershed. Finally, invasive species prey upon and have begun hybridizing with the native species. I really just want to get back to some solid hydrology work. I miss working survey and hydro and I’m pretty stoked to get to learn a new protocol and help with a new project.

Outside work, I spend most of my time trying to find ways to stay sane. Sometimes, sanity is really difficult to find and to keep in a place like Rawlins, WY. So, I run away on weekends. Or I dog sit. Dog sitting is good. I don’t have to stay at the barracks. I get to breathe for a second when I dog sit. I also get a lot of free salmon, antelope steaks, white tail burgers, white tail tenderloin, and ground elk. I never ate much meat before coming here but this is different. This is all sustainably hunted and processed, hormone-free, fantastic, tender, game meat. Shoot, never thought I’d say or write such a thing: I get paid in meat. Ha!

I also ramble, I knew that though. Here, pretty flower pictures! Cool bugs!