As other CLM folks will likely attest to, the first month of interning with the forest service can be quite shocking. New challenges present themselves often and in interesting ways. Working with a botany crew will show you how much you really do not know about plants. Having your sleeping bag break on a cold night will show you how little prepared you are to take on a Bear Grylls style survival situation. And yet, even though the challenge persists, you get better at handling it as the days go by. You’ll find yourself saying crazy things like “You see those palmate leaves? Obviouslyyy a lupine”. Or not so crazy things like “We should probably pack an extra sleeping bag.”

Luckily, just as challenges present themselves, wonderful examples of how to face them also do. When I feel overwhelmed about being far from home, I think of my courageous cat Skateboard, who braved the journey from West Virginia to Montana, taking in all the smells on the way. I also think of the wise advice given by our crew lead Riley, who reminds us not to expect ourselves to know everything right away. Instead, she says to take our time, try our best, and enjoy the challenge.

Between seed collection and botany fieldwork, there have been a plethora of opportunities to nerd out and learn as much as possible. So far, some of my favorite projects have been rare plant monitoring in Big Hole National Park and nonlethal bee collection for the Montana Bee Atlas Project. I’ve learned so much from our botany crew, including our entomology intern, who taught me how to set up beetle traps this week! The list of plants I can reliably identify in the field grows (slowly) every day. I’m excited to see how much I have learned by the next blog post. Until then, I’ll take things one day at a time.