The past two weeks have been filled with training, traveling, and wildflowers! The Wenatchee foothills are bursting with color, and it’s all I can do to keep up with learning the new flower species as they start to bloom. Luckily, I’ve already met some great botanists who are willing to let me pester them with questions out in the field, and I’m taking full advantage of their knowledge!
Last week, two of my fellow CLM interns and I drove down to Prineville, OR for a GeoBOB (Geographic Biotic Observations) mobile training course. Although our “field practice” with taking GPS data on our Trimble units ended up happening in the office parking lot, and all of our “observations” were purely fictional, I learned a lot, and I feel much more confident with the protocols of checking data in and out of the GeoBOB database and recording observations than I did before the training. However, the most educational part of the trip ended up happening outside of training, when my fellow interns and I decided to go for a hike at Chimney Rock after class and two botanists decided to come along! It was slow going, what with us stopping every time we saw a new plant, but the views were incredible and I learned so much.
We finally made it to Chimney Rock!
We had another memorable experience earlier this week when we traveled out east to join the Spokane tribe for their annual Root Day event. Over 450 people showed up, many of them schoolchildren, to take part in some traditional digging of Lomatium canbyi roots. These plants are known as biscuitroot, and their tuberous roots are edible (although the raw ones I tried smelled and tasted a bit like diesel fuel!). We spent a couple hours scouring the ground for the coveted plants, and after collecting some roots for the tribe elders, we filled our pockets with our own and are planning to roast them to see if that helps their flavor at all. After the digging, we drove over to Twin Lakes for a barbecue, where I tried salmon for the very first time!
Super excited about my root 🙂
This week we were also introduced to the AIM (Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring) and IRH (Indicators of Rangeland Health) protocols by our supervisor, Erik. It was great being out in the field, especially because the weather has cooled off a bit from the week before. The sites we visited all seemed relatively healthy, and therefore were easy to evaluate, but I’m sure we’ll see a greater range of conditions sooner or later. With AIM training in Prineville next week, and IRH training in Reno the week after that, we’ll be experts at these protocols soon enough!
This site looked like the opening scene in The Sound Of Music!
Katherine Schneider, BLM, Wenatchee WA field office