Tonasket, Washington is a land of extremes. Surrounded by low valleys and high peaks, it is full of hippies too liberal for Seattle mingling with folks too conservative for Spokane. Of all the Tonasketers (as I have been told they are called) I have ran into my favorite is probably the nice fella at the co-op who is always up for a conversation. At our first encounter he gave me a rundown of his life. His mother was an L.A. socialite/burlesque dancer who may or may not have known Lenny Bruce. With his mother’s connections he reckons he could have been a Hollywood star, but decided to rebel and move to Tonasket. He regrets this choice every day. At our next encounter he was wearing a cowboy hat and a cross necklace. In the week since we had last seen each other he had either found Jesus, or found a necklace. Either way, I hope it brought him some solace. He did not recognize me, but really wanted me to buy an amino acid based soy sauce which he claimed contained “the healthy salts”. I did not purchase this item, a choice which I may too one day regret. Such is the nature of life.
The Tonasket real estate market is in shambles. Luckily, my landlord has generously provided me a trailer to stay in. I share the trailer with many mice, one of which has an affinity for pooping in the kitchen sink. I have had worse roommates. In lieu of rent I have been doing odd jobs around his property. Mainly I have been pulling weeds and organizing rocks into piles next to a pond. The frogs and newts that live around the pond will use the rocks as a refuge from predators and the hot sun. Who would have thought that filling a bucket with rocks from a pile and then moving the rocks to a secondary location where I arrange them into a new pile could be so fulfilling?
My other work has been going well too. I have been conducting plant surveys in the Colville National Forest, paying special attention to observing sensitive plant species. To date I have seen four species from our sensitive plant list, and discovered three new sensitive plant populations. It has been a thrill to conduct these surveys, and I hope to conduct more in the coming months. As far as seed collection goes, myself and my co-intern have located many populations of silky lupine, mountain brome, and fireweed. In the coming weeks we plan to return to these populations to monitor phenology. Hopefully we can begin seed collection soon.
