The winter months have not been filled with field work, unfortunately, but they have allowed for some much needed planning for what is looking like a very busy field season.

The last month I got to do a little more work with fuels reduction on the Pine Hill Preserve (PHP). The PHP, where I put in the majority of my time, has 10% of CA’s native flora and 8 rare plants. The unique flora of this area historically benefited from disturbance from fire but increased urbanization has lead to suppression of fires for public safety reasons. Anyhow, after taking the S212 chainsaw course I went out and helped to re-thin the fuel breaks between the dense chaparral and the neighborhoods.

Cleaning up a downed gray pine in the fuel break of PHP

My supervisor and I also went to a way out section of our field office that gets less attention to scout for possible seed collections for this field season. After the rain kept me in the office for most of January it was a pleasure to get out into the field and it was a beautiful day to do so. It looks like we have the potential of getting at least 6 or so seed collections from just this site and I am hoping that, with this being the second consecutive year of somewhat adequate rainfall in our part of CA, we will have plenty of seed collections throughout our field office to chose from.

View from our Bear Valley unit. In the distance we could see El Capitan and Half Dome at Yosemite!

At the end of the month PHP staff will be presenting a couple of small talks to a local community college on PHP’s flora and pollinators.

Wish us luck!

-Landon from the BLM Mother Lode Field Office in El Dorado Hills, CA