Hello stranger,

In an attempt to reflect on the past 6 months, I will recount the events of just one day – Thursday, November 6, 2014 – and elaborate on the thoughts this provokes.

I woke up at 5 AM, and prepared my backpack for the day.  I was ready for sun, rain, and snow.  I got to the office at 6 AM, gathered the navigation equipment, scraped ice off of the truck, and set out on the familiar drive to the field office.

Let’s stop there.  Waking up before the sunrise has become a habit.  I feel well prepared to work in a variety of weather conditions.  I feel confident driving a pickup truck over difficult terrain.  I can navigate with Trimble GPS units, and if they ever malfunction, then I can still reach my destination with a map and compass.  These abilities are largely a product of my CLM internship experience.

I love the sunrise, and it has been a pleasure to see the majority of them for the past 6 months.  I will miss this sight tremendously:

The sun rises as I enter the field office

Soon after entering the field office, I turned onto a gravel road, and then again onto a two-track road where I was met by rocks, barbed wire fences, and loitering cattle.

Let’s stop again.  I was not expecting to learn so much about livestock during this internship.  However, they are a major player in rangeland dynamics, and I am grateful to have seen where our Nation’s beef comes from.

I’m going to miss these gals.

I pulled over by the stretch of land where I would walk approximately 10 miles of slickspot peppergrass transects.  Some may find this task monotonous, but there is nothing else I would rather do.

Allow me to explain.  The internship began with sage-grouse habitat assessments, which required identifying an abundance of new plants, and mastering new monitoring techniques.  The focus shifted to locating remotely-sensed wetlands, and describing their vegetation composition and water source.  This task allowed us to explore some amazing country, where we often wondered if anyone else had ever been.  Next we downloaded thermographs for water temperature data collection in streams, which were quite welcome in the heat of the summer.  These priority projects were broken up with various trainings and other opportunities such as mineral pit compliance inspections, frog searches, and rain gauge measuring.

After working hard to internalize all of this new knowledge and skill, it was nice to just soak it all in while walking around looking for slickspot peppergrass – to just be out there.

Happy to be out there, and start walking

I listened to the coyotes howl as I began my walk.  Their howling was lost in the wind, which was sometimes interrupted by chirping birds.  I flushed sage-grouse every once in a while, and smiled at the thought that these birds are what brought me out here.  While walking, I proudly distinguished between about 10 different species of dead grass, and marveled at the recently snow-covered mountains.

So while it is time to go home, I leave not just with new botanical skills and land management experience, but also with a strong relationship with a landscape that I could have never imagined.  I am proud to have helped sustainably manage and conserve our Nation’s land, and am surer than ever that I want to keep doing this for the duration of my career.

Thank you,

Jonathan Kleinman

Jarbidge Field Office

Bureau of Land Management