Winter is rapidly setting in and it feels as if it has been nudging me out of the field and back into the office.  Well the weather isn’t solely to blame for this, it is also due to my appointment coming to an end and needing to catch up on miscellaneous office work that I have put off for the past 8 months and working on the SOS end of the year wrap up.  But I like to think of if more as the forceful winter chill laying down its icy fist and forbidding me from collecting anymore seeds…

My time working for the Medford, OR BLM is rapidly coming to an end.  It has been a great season of opportunity for me to expand my botanical knowledge and learn about how difference agencies function, bureaucratically as well as biologically.  I gained valuable skills pertaining to surveying, report writing, and communicating with the public as well as other employees within the agencies, all while upholding a professional demeanor.

I spent over 3 weeks in October leading a crew of 8 convicts in a reseeding project of a burnt up forest.  We reseeded some BLM plots within the 36,000 burn zone.  We successfully reseeded over 1,100 of those acres, using  over 14,000 pounds of native grass and forb seeds.  This was a great learning experience both being a crew leader, as well as working with convicts.  This may have been the most enjoyable project I have worked on since starting this internship.  I definitely feel it was the most enriching, granting me an opportunity that I don’t think I would otherwise have been able to experience. This project did not only help me gain people skills but I also utilized some scientific method by setting up 50 picture plot points in order to to back for the next few years and monitor the successes of the project.   It is too bad I won’t be around to watch these grasses grow!