Wow, I cant believe we are already into August! It feels like my time here is whizzing past!

We have had another couple of extremely productive weeks at the Eagle Lake Field Office. We have gone out to the field nearly every single day, scouting for new seed collection sites, checking on old ones, and performing collections.

We are up to 17 completed collections, with a few more species on the back burner until the seeds are slightly more mature.

Our band (SOS team) album cover.

We love to have photo shoots in the field. Photo taken at Painter’s Creek, CA.

Im starting to realize how different each area in our field office is. My fellow interns and I ventured up to one of the higher areas in our field office yesterday to the Ferdonyer Peak. This was one of the prettiest areas that we have scouted so far! We were surrounded by trees and a smorgasbord of species we havn’t even seen since we have been working. We could see most of the field office by doing a 360 degree turn, everywhere from Observation Pt. to the other side of Eagle Lake.

View from the lookout at Ferdonyer Peak! Thats the very low Eagle Lake that you see in front of the mountain.

Andrea, Lillie, and Rachael doing some scouting at the peak.

While at Ferdonyer, we also got a chance to visit the lookout. It was a very interesting day to be there becuase we could see the smoke from the Dodge Fire, which has been burning since Saturday night. I’m thinking I wouldn’t do the best job at scouting for fires from the lookout, since Monday I was looking at the same area that was burning, thinking the clouds were looking exceptionally cool, and failing to realize it was actually a fire burning!

What do you think, Fire or crazy awesome cloud?

Since then, it has burned to 10,700 acres. This is an area that we visit often for seed collections and it is crazy to think of how much of this area will now be burned the next time we see it.

We also had the chance to work with a couple of the interns from the Alturas field office this week! We assisted them with the collection of Idaho Fescue and Snowberry on a beautiful Mountain in the Modoc Forest. They were a couple of species that are lacking in our field office, and were pretty fun to collect.

Hunter gathers picking snowberries.

My weekend adventures have also continued. I had another trip to San Francisco and Santa Cruz a couple weekends ago. It has been so long since I had the chance to play in the sand and put my toes in the ocean.

Bonny Doon Beach in Santa Cruz, CA.

And just this past weekend, I had an amazing reunion with a few of my friends from my Puerto Rico internship! We visited both Lake Tahoe for a little hike and play in the water, and Lassen National Park!

Me and my PR pals in Tahoe!

At at beautiful waterfall in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Well! Thats it for now! Until next time, Jillian