People of the Big River 2025

 Today we visited a multitude of places. Our first visit was the plant nursery with Gaile Redberg who has a bachelors in Biology education and taught that for most of her time until she decided to get a masters in biology. After a while she got into this whole plant nursery management. It's always nice seeing how many different careers everyone has gone through before coming to where they are now. Makes me feel more comfortable trying things out. She showed us around the nursery, they have a lot of different plants that they manage and move around. We helped them trim and move some bigger plants. the work was kind of fun, I think I would like doing that kind of job for a bit. On the way out we were allowed to take a few. I grabbed one for my mom because she loves collecting and caring for different plants.       Our next visit was at the Nixyoawii Government Agency with Andrew Wildbill who is part of the Cayuse tribe. He has been working in the Department of nat...

     We woke up early in order to change campgrounds again, our final spot. First we stopped by a view-spot that held obsidian. I was already feeling out of breath halfway up but the view was very pretty. There was a glass menagerie of obsidian on the mountain, snow, and a pathway surrounded by rocks. I kind of wish I went all the way up but I was already feeling a little tired so I decided to head back. There was a big tour group of what looked like a bunch of highschoolers but turns out they were college students too, from Texas. I sat for a bit to watch the view on the way back down and got some nice pictures. After that we started the drive to Pendleton which would take around 6 hours. The car ride felt long but it wasn't boring at least, a lot of stories going around as well as sharing our music. We took the usual bathroom breaks and I was going to get an Oregon souvenir but then I remembered I used to live in Oregon and still visit it so it would be kind of pointles...

     Today we went to Sisters Ranger District to assist them on the B.D.A. Beaver Dam Analog. Similar to what we did in swamp lake except in a smaller body of water. We arrived slightly early at the district so we used the restrooms and shopped around the little souvenir store. I liked one of the sweatshirts and water bottle over there but they were a little over my budget on those kind of things. I did get a cute Smokey the bear plush, I think that was a good $12.50 well spent. Once our guiders arrived they led us to the conference room where we introduced ourselves. The guides consisted of Liz Day, Alex Enna, and Christine Neyers, all having some sort of background that assists them with forestry. Christine has 19 years of experience in botany, Liz has a degree in wildlife biology, and Alex has a background in fire.       They gave us a presentation on what we would be doing today and where. The location was at the lower Black Butte Swamp that was cu...

     This morning we had to wake up at around 6 in order to leave at around 7: 30. It gets pretty hard getting out of the warmth of my sleeping bag when it's so cold up here but I'm able to force myself out eventually. Today we went to look for a rare plant called the Pumice Moonwort also known as Botrychium Pumicola. We were guided by Merlow Fisher who is a botanist and is currently monitoring the amount of moon warts in the area as they have become a rarity. They want to figure out if can help out the population or just leave them be. She also taught us about the type of material we were on; porous rock, ash from a volcanic eruption that happened thousands of years ago.  Pumice Moonwort (image from google)          We first scouted the area for signs of the plant without any visual reference, only a description. Eventually we were given a photo and the plant was first located by Raquel. The plant was a lot smaller than I thought, about half...

     I don't know if it's because it felt like we were able to sleep in a little more this morning, or because I managed to go to sleep at a decent time last night, but I actually feel like I slept well. It's cold but I think I figured out how to maintain warm throughout the night with my blanket. We actually got a whole warm breakfast this morning too which was nice. Fresh bacon, eggs, and potatoes and some coffee on a cold morning sounded great. Today was also laundry day so I had to change into the last remaining clothes I had to be able to send the others to wash which, unfortunately, all I had left was a t-shirt and some shorts. At least I still had my blanket to keep me warm.       In the meantime, while our clothes were sent to wash, we had some science work to do. First, we inoculated the Spokane water we forgot to do last time and then we got to work reviewing our previously incubated bio paddles for any bacteria growth. We made note of the ty...

     Today was another campsite relocating day. We had to wake up pretty early in order to pack up everything and head out by 8 am. The car ride was going to be an 8-9 hour road trip from Spokane, WA to Crane Prairie in Oregon. It surprisingly didn't feel like that long. I think it's also because I slept most of the way there and would only get up to stretch whenever we stopped for a bathroom break. I'm also surprised my head didn't hurt like last time. Lemon usually helps ease my nausea so I think the lemonade I got at the gas station really helped.  I did lose some feeling in legs though.      We finally arrived at around 5 pm, set up our tents and got to preparing dinner. I think tonight's dinner was one of my favorite foods: meat, lettuce, and cheese wrapped in a tortilla but Monette's cooking is always good. But I think I ate so much that it upset my stomach, the cold didn't help either. It kind of feels like every new location it gets even colder...