The past month or so has been flying by. There was time for celebrations and fireworks for the 4th of July, and following that, the Lassen county fair, which gave us all the opportunity to eat more than enough deep fried food for the year.

In between all of the weekend fun, I still managed to have plenty of good times while gallivanting across the Eagle Lake Field Office, even with cheat grass embedding into my socks and stabbing my ankles. We have managed to get our hands on around 10-15 collections this past month, including a few different grasses (Great Basin Wild Rye, Nevada Blue Grass, Idaho Fescue, Squirrel Tail) as well as a few randomly found plants, including a few different types of mint and Bird’s Foot Trefoil, which is good Sage grouse food apparently.       

I have come to see my fair share of burrows and wild horses, and while they are beautiful, we have come to see how their sheer numbers have so easily been able to decimate an area. There are some areas that we come across that you would think is a two-track road, but is instead a horse trail. They also seem to have “stolen” some of our grass collections from us by eating everything within close proximity of their favorite dry lake bed. The picture on the above right is from our way out to the Nevada side of our field office, where there must have been over 60 burrows gathered around the flooded pool area.

Over the past few days there has been a fire up near the Dodge Reservoir that is near the northern part of our field station. They fire crew has said that it has grown to around 10,000 acres so far. We were able to have a clear look from Fredonyer Peak.

Even though fires are obviously dangerous, while sitting in the office today, I could hear and feel the excitement, energy, and emotions from everyone, as the radio calls were coming in and the whole office was working together. I love my job in the field, and while office work can be a drag, it was nice to experience a different side of what all is going on throughout the office during the fire season. 

With a new month ahead of me, I am looking forward to all of the new places we will experience while out scouting and gathering collections, as well as monitoring of special status plants. I don’t know if anything will top Fredonyer Peak, with its breath taking views, multitude of collection sights, and did I mention, we weren’t sweating to death up there? We will definitely be headed up there every week.

Until next time,

Andrea Stuemky, Eagle Lake Field Office, BLM, Susanville, CA