Internal conflict resolution has been my new focus at work. It’s frustrating, and I would much rather not be dealing with it, but in a way I think it’s an important thing for me to work on.

When I came out here it was with the goal of exploring as much as possible. I took that to heart, both at work and outside of work. At work, we were performing a diversity of activities in the field, ranging from vegetation surveys of sage grouse habitat to nighttime Mexican spotted owl surveys. My brother had even sent me an Australian-style oilskin cowboy hat, saying that it was the only thing missing from the photos of me out here.

Outside of work I was trying hard to experience the landscape intimately. I was approaching mountain biking with the notion that I could go as far as I wanted so that I could see everything the Cedar City area had to offer. If I saw a trail, I’d go until I lost it, then turn around. Running was the same; I always looked at trail running as the most efficient way for me to connect to a new area. I found trails and disregarded time limits, exhausting myself on mountains as I climbed thousands of feet in heat or, in one case, rain and hail! It was fantastic.

Then the conflict arose. I started getting pain in a familiar place, where I’d hurt myself before, and it was painful just getting up in the morning. I found myself stiff and struggling to work in the field, finally raising the white flag and resigning myself to dreaded office work. Desperate to make myself useful, I powered through the mountain of data that had accumulated while we were having fun out in the field and even tying up loose ends from previous years’ data. This didn’t take as long as I thought, so I started to turn to my mentor for extra tasks, and she in turn sought work for me among other colleagues in the office. I got a 3-day assignment to survey the cattle on allotments toward the Nevada border (via 4×4, of course…walking was still painful). When I finished that, I gained the mission of engraving BLM property (this was harder to organize than I thought, and it’s ongoing…I occasionally find a rusty shovel, piece of rebar, or permanent marker that people jokingly leave on my desk).

I’ve been dealing with this setback and my physical antsy-ness by trying to get as much as possible from the situation and prepare myself for when I get back in the field. I’ve been poring over every piece of literature on sage grouse, their habitat, and their restoration. When I finished with that, I read about wilderness ethics, different methods for monitoring terrestrial birds, wildlife management techniques, and other miscellaneous literature (like the wilderness ranger handbook, which must be really old judging by the advice it gives). While it’s hard to hear from my co-workers about the day’s trials and tribulations in the field, I find comfort in my familiarity with the background info that, I hope, will only make me more effective when I finally get back outdoors. This is one of those things that I just need to learn to deal with, and the difficulty of it makes it that much better for me. And, of course, I get by with a little help from my friends!