vegetation monitoring

Okay, veg monitoring is not my favorite activity (when I learned how it was just Lauren and I one by one cutting all the plants out of a 2 square foot frame on the ground and sorting them by type, sunburning my knees and making my back ache; we finished our first (very diverse) plot in just under 3 hours and we knew we had 7 more to go) but today I found that it can be a lot better when there are 5 people all cutting in that same square.  We set an all time record, finished a (not so diverse) plot in just about 10 minutes.  We finished all three of the plots we were supposed to get done today with time to spare, and we only have 9 left to go!  

I'm talking, of course, about my project that I am leading with participants from the Tahoe-Baikal Institute's Summer Environmental Education Program.  This afternoon we spent a half day doing our vegetation monitoring out in the meadow, they will finish up tomorrow and on Wednesday morning while I am away at a training and then I'll be back on Thursday to begin mapping remnant stream channels in the meadow with GPS.  We work on this project for a week and a half, spend 2 days creating and practicing a presentation (I'll be the advisor, not a presenter) and then my group will present their findings on the state of the meadow vegetation with relation to groundwater levels and their recommendations as to which historic channel would be most beneficial for use in a possible future restoration project.   

This is one of the participants, from Mongolia.  She is holding a Stadia Rod for scale, to show the height of vegetation.  I chose this one as my photo of the day for today because I just love the clouds.  

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And Happy Mauritaniversary to all the RIM Pirates who set out with me on that fateful day to begin a 2 year journey that lasted only 14 months.  Heres a throwback photo for nostalgia:

Me and my We.  

Funny how sometimes it feels like living in a different culture in a far away place speaking a different language felt more comfortable than trying to understand the complexities of my own.