Early this August, I got to make my first personal delivery to the Coeur d’Alene Forest Service Nursery in Coeur d’Alene, ID! Since the nursery is a 2.5 hour drive, it has proven to be quicker and more efficient to deliver the seed lots ourselves, rather than packing and shipping the large quantity of seeds that have take up all spare office space. Myself and the rest of the Lolo Botany Crew got to take a tour around the nursery facilities and take a look at all the different projects going on this time of year. The nursery is quite extensive, with many greenhouses and open warehouse space for plugs and seeds spread to dry.
Among the seeds and saplings are a more friendly nursery occupant: the nursery cats. Apparently three cats inhabit the Coeur d’Alene Nursery, although I only had the pleasure of meeting Smoky, who currently takes up residence in the seed extractory. What a hard worker! It was very impressive to see the success of current grow-outs from seed collections of years past from the Lolo NF. After surveying for much Whitebark Pine this season, one of my favorite parts of the nursery tour was to see the greenhouse designated for Whitebark Pine saplings.They typically ship out about 100,000 white bark pine saplings every year, so it was excellent to see great restoration hard at work. Super cool time!
Another fun event in early August was the Western Montana Fair, which I got to attend both for work and fun. I had the chance to participate in some community outreach with the Lolo National Forest, greeting the public at the FS booth had and got to talk to the community about some of the projects going on and how exciting it is to work in natural resources/restoration. The best part was meeting new coworkers from different programs in the Missoula office who I don’t get to see every day. Aside from work, I went to the rodeo at the fair, and it was actually my first rodeo! It was so much fun to watch all the events.
Earlier in August I took a trip up to Glacier National Park. It has been pretty smoky this August, but the views were still great! I hiked from Lake McDonald up to Snyder Lake. Beautiful hike I would recommend to anyone visiting Glacier.
