![\"Driving\"](\"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/IMGP9946-300x199.jpg\")
Driving home from work<\/p><\/div>\n
Before\u00a0 I started in the Bishop BLM office two weeks ago, people would ask me what\u00a0I was going to be doing.\u00a0 It was still a little unclear to me at the\u00a0time.\u00a0 I knew that\u00a0 I would be doing some seed collection for the Seeds of Success program –\u00a0but how could collecting seeds take up five months of time? So, I would make something up. “Oh, I’m going to be counting sagebrush”.\u00a0 I imagined the Great Basin\u00a0 filled with sagebrush — only sagebrush. Its a desert right? So, not very diverse – its pretty much just sagebrush?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"Indigo](\"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/IMGP0140-199x300.jpg\")
Indigo Bush along HWY 168<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yeah, right.\u00a0 Like Dorothy in Oz, I had (and still have) a lot to learn about the cast of characters that make up sagebrush scrub.\u00a0 First of all, there are the three different\u00a0subspecies of “regular” sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata<\/em>), and then there are other species, like Artemisia spinescens <\/em>(budsage), and Artemisia arbuscula<\/em> (low sage). But I already knew that there is some sagebrush around here; it’s the multitude of other\u00a0shrubspecies that has flabbergasted me. There is rabbit\u00a0brush, bitterbrush,\u00a0cheesebush, and indigo bush to name a few.\u00a0\u00a0Indigo bush is a particular favorite of mine, with it’s spectacular blue flowers and speckled seed pods.\u00a0 I really love the\u00a0whole Fabaceae family, in fact.\u00a0 I’ve spent sometime looking for and IDing lupines,\u00a0have beautiful spikes of flowers, and\u00a0the more cryptic milkvetches – of which there are\u00a0several\u00a0rare species in the area.\u00a0 Let me tell you a little something about the month of June in the Great Basin – it is wildflower beautiful\u00a0central.\u00a0 Having never been much of one for flowers – driving up a gully which opens out on a patch of blooming scrub with the white peaks of the sierra in the background is one of the most phenomenally things that I have ever seen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is my job? Driving around looking for and collecting seeds from wildflowers? What could be better than wandering around looking at wild-flowers all day?\u00a0 Unlike Dorothy, I am not going to tap my heels together and whisper\u00a0“There is no place like home”.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m staying in Oz for as long as I can.<\/p>\n Alabama Hills arch<\/p><\/div>\n …I don’t think we’re in Massachusetts anymore.\u00a0 And, somehow, I got a job in the most beautiful place I could ever imagine.\u00a0 There was a whirlwind (otherwise known as graduation) that lifted me up over the mountains, and I somehow … Continue reading <\/a> <\/p>\n
![\"Alabama](\"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/IMGP0113.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/dt>\n