So, all that planting I was talking about? Even I was amazed when I saw the numbers on my timesheet:
29Oct – 72 blackbrush and ephedra
30Oct – 274
31Oct – 392
01Nov – 336
02Nov – 360
03Nov – 720
04Nov – 720
05Nov – 360
06Nov – 648
07Nov – 226
I didn’t copy the numbers for the 8th – 12th except for that on Sun we replaced 68 cages with the cones (treepees).
2007 Nov 9 (Fri) Written by hand in letter format to my sister. Mostly copied here.
Don’t remember if I described our campground woes in yesterday’s segment, but the campground we’re staying at — the same one as for our 4-day tour last week — has 2 host pairs. The host we found when we arrived yesterday didn’t know where they were supposed to put us (communication!), so they gave us some walk-in sites to set up in, which happened to be WRONG according to the other host pair. So we had to move to sites 19-21 this afternoon after 10 hours of work. There are six people per site with 6 tents crammed into what would normally hold one or two tents. Most everyone from our 6-month contract crew (screw7 for southern crew 7) is in a tent. Our partnering NCC crew (screw8), who started 3 months ago mainly decided to bag it, as did I. I can imagine coyotes licking my face at night.
My hands are sore writing this. But I have my fleece fingerless gloves on, and they are comfortable within them. They are chapped from wet, wind dry and also from the soil/sand/rock mixture that is the desert ground. I’ve gotten a few more stabs, pokes and living splinters — mostly from dead yucca/joshua tree leaves (youch!) — but most of the cuts on my hands are from either sharp rocks or just splits from being so chapped. My knuckles look like I got in a fist fight with a cat.
Some of my fellow crew members are burning an open Dri-Water that was going to be thrown away and was salvaged, which is silica-based. I’d be curious to walk over, but I’m not sure of the toxicity of the fumes. They’re doing experiments with it. Comments from the campfire have included “yellow flame!” and “that’s a good fire retardent.” I intend on looking up the MSDS if it has one on the internet when I get off on Monday.
Apparently tomorrow is our last planting day. Five of the crew are (supposedly) going back to Gold Butte to finish planting the zebas that didn’t have any materials. Six hours of driving for two hours of work. I’d volunteer to go because I want to climb around on the rocks.
I’m starting to get chilled, even with my wool hat on, so I’m going to bed.
2007 Nov 8 (Thurs) Written by hand in letter format to my sister. Mostly copied here.
Was I really thinking the last couple of days that I’d be cool to work with the government? Despite Nevada being the first state to incorporate inter-agency cooperation between governmental entities, there is still much cat-fighting and pushing-off of responsibility. The zeba that we use as one of the 8 methods was carted off in one of the USGS trucks on Wed. evening, so we didn’t have enough to plant with today. Not the BLM’s fault or responsibility! Let the USGS deal with it! *sigh*
If I described today in two words, they would be totally unrelated. One, for my actions, would be: laughter. The other, for my observations: egos. Egos abounded today — not from people in the NCC, but from partners and campground hosts.
The sky is very bright tonight and the air is very noisy, but the source isn’t the moon, stars, or wildlife. In contrast to where we were up at Gold Butte, about 75 miles NE of Vegas, here at Red Rocks we are 15 miles from the city’s edge. Major stars are visible, whereas the minor ones have faded into the backdrop of strobe casino lights, and the airtraffic is a prominent drone once again.
I’m quite afraid that I prefer dry climates at this point, or at least hilly dry or flat humid. I’m not so sure that I could stand mountainy, buggy, humid climates anymore. Especially not for extended camping…
2007 Nov 7 (Wed) Written by hand in letter format to my sister. Mostly copied here.
Two thoughts for tonight:
Washington (DC) has given a lot ($12 million) to the rehabilitation effort out here in the form of a 3-year grant that started 3 years ago. The Mojave, as the driest desert in North America, hasn’t gotten enough rain for seeds planted in the beginning of the grant to germinate. From January to September 2007, the USGS rainguage totaled 0.6″. They (the USGS) are really excited about the plants we’re putting out because they have been grown in by their partners since 2005 and they (the USGS) will actually have some results to show in the desert ground, other than just that the seeds haven’t germinated yet.
Adam (my supe) made the comment about the commute on the way to our last plot of the day as we were bouncing all over in 4-low gear. I also love the ride. I laugh.
I saw my first scorpion today — about half as long as my thumb and just as wide. He came out with a pile of dirt that I pulled from a hole with my bare hand. Eeek! Then when walking to the next plot, I did not know that I had a huge ant with a stinger contraption inside my shirt, and got bitten three times as it tried to escape getting smushed by my backpack. The first time it bit me, when I first slung on my pack, I thought I had gotten a cactus spine stuck somewhere. I didn’t realize I had a bug in my shirt until I got to the next plot and was investigating why the supposed spine traveled up my spine.
I think it is rather unfortunate that I don’t like hot dry weather, because desert ecology is so fascinating. More specifically, Mojave Desert ecology is fascinating. Something like 40% of the species that live here are endemic, meaning that they are ONLY here and nowhere else.
I remember thinking I’d write five more pages tonight, but I’m tired. We worked the Fork and Tramp burn areas today.
2007 Nov 6 (Tuesday). Written by hand in letter format to my sister. Mostly copied here.
I’m writing by headlamp @ 6:30pm, tucked away in my tent listening to the ongoing/ending chess match down in the kitchen. We’ve tailgated these last 2 days and tomorrow night as well, because we forgot to pack tables. I actually prefer not having tables but am outnumbered 9 to 1.
Hackeysack is big with our partnering crew and is quite fun. Hopefully I will find people at my next job who like to play. The word “airsoft” gets no response here.
We’re in the Gold Butte backcountry on the Nevada/Arizona line, and quite near Utah as well. Our job is the same as it was last week — fire rehabilitation, but just in a different area. My palms are raw once again, and unless the forecast for tomorrow has changed since the weekend, there is a chance for storms. The wind wakes me up in the early mornings (typically around 4am); my mind hears small animals trying to dig their way into my tent.
I took a bandana bath this afternoon after we got ‘back’ from the field. 
The last three plots we planted were in close proximity to our campsite. (I just heard the call for Scrabble go out; chess must be over.) We’re planting with the same process that we were last week — 8 different possibilities — so that the USGS can track which method works best for re-growing burned-out native Mojave desert plants. I am not sure if they plan to use the same method in the Sonoran and/or Great Basin Deserts. The crew members seem to always leave the same method for last, that being the Zeba plantings. Zeba is a hydrophillic starch polymer. How’s your chemistry knowledge?
I chose to plant Zeba all day yesterday, instead of helping finish it at the end of each plot and had a nightmare last night. We’ve marked Zeba by orange flags in the plots, and in my dream, we were planting poisonous orange baby snakes. I dropped mine, and it came and attacked me, only I couldn’t see where it was. I was yelling for help, and woke myself up yelling and pawing around in my sleeping bag trying to find it. I doubt anyone actually heard me, because we were very spread out, and no one mentioned hearing me yell.
So I took a break from it today.
We’re plant pros, now. Our first couple of days last week found us finishing 5 or 6 plots a day. Today, admist a few delays and no more plants to plant an hour before normal stopping time, we had knocked off 10 plots. Tomorrow we are scheduled to complete 10 more and on Thursday, five, before heading back down to Red Rocks and Good Springs to finish the plots out there. Our crew talked about wanting to finish 12 plots tomorrow so that we could have more free time on Thursday; we’re not scheduled to plant anything on travel-day-Thursday — just set up camp.
I think I’ve never seen so many stars — the Milky Way is visible as are all sorts of stars that fade in the distant light of Bloomington/Vegas/(insert city name). My Eureka AlpineLite 2XT tent has vents on the top and though I forgot to open them last night, they are open now. Today was the perfect summer day, although I would have enjoyed more clouds. I’m not sure of the temperature, but it felt around a midwestern 85-90 degrees. I am enjoying the cold nights. Apparently, temperatures begin reaching up into the 85-90 degree range in the end of March, with tips reaching into the low 100s by early May! (Arghhh!)
My supervisor (sup) grew up in Vegas and does not one bit like the sprawly mess that is Vegas. I was quietly tickled when he ranted about the development and mentioned that he was waiting for the natural disaster risks to come to fruitition and wipe out the growth. Since I wish for tornadoes in the Bloomington-Normal and into Towanda area to do the same, it was nice to hear that someone else feels the same about their hometown.
I can’t believe how many people smoke on the crews! But smoke they do. How annoying. I’m quite vocal about down- and up- wind concerning smoking, and most people on the crews are considerate.
Oh, I forgot. I was going to write about our campsite, but tangoed around on a tangent. They call it a ‘town’ where we’re staying, on a back road into the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It used to house multiple mine entrances, but most are now blocked or fenced off. All the same, we were warned about too much wandering around after dusk. Rusty metal litters the pathways, but BLM considers it archeological in nature and we were warned about moving it around. One of the fences is wood and cardons off 2 grave markers: Arthur Coleman and William H. Garnett. Both are new-looking, and Garnett’s has a flower. Coleman died in the 50s and Garnett in the 60s.
On Monday (11-5), we will be going to the Gold Butte backcountry for 8 days to do rehabilitation for the 24K acre fire that occurred sometime in the last 2 years. We’re camping out there; no fancy-schmancy campground with pit toilets and a 1/4 mile hike to running water next week!
This week (Mon – Thurs), we rehabilitated about 900 acres in Red Rock Canyon National Preservation Conservation area. The USGS partnered with the BLM to create an experiment/study to determine the best method for re-establishing native plants which can take up to 50 – 2000 (estimated based on past data) years to take stock again after a fire (black brush in particular), so we had 8 varieties of planting tasks.
Since the wild burros and horses will munch the plants to nothing if given the chance, as will the jack rabbits, kangaroo rats, desert tortoises, and other critters, we caged the little guys after planting them. On Monday, the BLM/USGS partners announced the cages were on their way from Arkansas and should arrive shortly. Needless to say, they arrived Thursday morning. Damn Arkansonians! =) Between Mon and Thurs, the partners built small screen tents from scrap screen that were very sharp on the edges for us to put around the seedlings.
The BLM fire department helped us today by providing a truck and water hose up to each plot so that we didn’t have to trek with watering cans (or water cannons, as I have consistently called them today for an unknown reason except perhaps exhaustion). I thought of my cousin Will a lot on Thursday since he works for the fire/rescue department up near Lake Arrowhead in CA and was working against the fires up there last week.
Since Red Rocks is in such a public eye, there was a Las Vegas Review Journal reporter out there with us on Tuesday and a TV crew on Wednesday. The reporter’s father played football for Illinois Wesleyan! Anyway, there’s a picture of a coworker and me planting a plant on the front page of the B section. (The photog missed the plant! Imagine that.) The article is good (except for him explaining that one of the plants we planted, ephedra, is used in meth production. Last thing we want is koo-koos running around pulling up our plants…)
As if it wasn’t stressful enough on my humidity-loving body to adjust to 3-15% humidity! I love planting and gardening, and access to water, but my hands….! Planting…mix water with dirt to make mud. Get hands wet. Hands dry in the wind and the soil. Hands get wet. Hands air dry…4 days of that, and 8 next week… Think of a very fine sandpaper and run it across your face, your arms, and try to put on clothes….Ick! The NCC issued us personal protection equipment (PPE): a helmet, safety glasses, and gloves. I don’t wear the gloves at all when planting; most of my crewmembers put them on after the water is done to push dry dirt onto the plant and create burms to hold the water. That’s too labourious in my mind; I just push the dirt with my hands. Needless to say, in the desert when a cactus dies, it returns to the soil and its spines blend in with the soil.
Heh, I just found the story online so y’all could read it, and it had a correction that was published: ephedra was found in a 2001 study to not be related to meth production. hee hee
http://www.lvrj.com/news/10911281.html (no longer available) [7 May 2008 I found the article on Scribd.]
Coyotes that ran around our campsite at night… they ran with one of the supervisor’s boots about 100 feet as he found when he went for it in the morning, and they were cavorting around my supervisor’s and a team member’s tent area at night. So far I haven’t seen any snakes or scorpions. Perhaps next week.