September has been a doozy. Work-wise, we’re finishing up our seed collections and moving full time to reseeding and replanting in burned areas. We’ve made a strong push to finish collections and grab the last few species that are populous enough, and our office is filling with bags of seed that are waiting to be weighed and logged. This has been lucky for me because at the beginning of the month I sprained my ankle on the job so badly that I am just now getting back into the field. BIG bummer, but that’s the way it goes.

One benefit to my time in the office is that our seed collection has been much more efficient and focused. I’ve been able to spend more time going through the data and determining what species we can reasonably finish collections for as well as where we might find them based on our scouting. With so much data, there were lots of little patches that we had been missing, so it feels good to be on top of the data. Additionally, I’m getting our data sufficiently organized so we will be able to focus on seeding for longer as the report writing shouldn’t take as much time.

Having just recently re-entered the field, I don’t have many pictures to show for this month. But last week I went out to do some roadside collections that didn’t require too much ankle strength and got some pictures of fall entering the forest:

Fall in the forest seems to exist in largely brown and yellow hues, different from the orange and red I’m used to. Still, it’s more colorful than I expected with the majority of the forest so coniferous. The temperatures are staying strong with highs in the 80s, but the lows are starting to drop. We’ve taken to wearing multiple layers to account for the extreme change from morning to noon. That’s the desert for you.

That’s all I have for this month. It’s been slow, and I’ve been spending lots of time on my computer.

Until next time,
Emma