That’s right! The Plant Lady is off on her latest adventure in 11 days!
I left the forest early to prepare for my move and spend some time with this fuzzy butt
My shoes and new bikinis are here and things are going to start coming together soon!!
I’ll keep ya updated!
-The Plant Lady
Wow. Today I saw a part of the forest that I didn’t know existed. My jaw dropped for a second until I was so overcome by peace and calming that I had to smile! I won’t hold off any longer here’s what we found when we went down our first fire trail:
But this isn’t all…
This is a happy place! This is happiness. John Muir once said “The mountains are caling and I must go.” The Plant Lady once said “The ocean is calling and I must go.”
I’m so bumbed to leave this place, but life is starting and the ocean is calling my name.
It rained this afternoon so we had to stay inside which gave me a chance to catch up on some paper work. I got finished quite quickly so I helped my boss with some of his old paper work. It gave me a chance to look at some of the history of YMM. I’m so glad I worked on this! I found some of the funniest things and some of the cutest things that a nerdy little lady like me could love.
The message to the managing forester left from someone they were trying to buy land from gave me a great laugh.
This little reminder that sometimes the power is out of our control and when we do have it we need to be very careful and take responsibility for our actions.
All the forester vibes today and I’m loving it.
-The Plant Lady
Day 10
Forest: 7 Rachel: 3
Injuries: -nothing to complain of today!
This mornig I put in my 2 weeks notice with the forest! (Actually 1 week and 3 days). I get to finishe this week here at YMM and then I’m headed to GSOP for 3 days which seems silly but oh well!
Today we did more spraying… What a surprise! But we did see some local craftsmen in the forest. We didn’t get to talk to them but their work was absolutely beautiful.
It was a beautiful morning!
When we got back to the cabin for lunch we found that we had been invaded by FORESTERS! They were everywhere! In our bunks, in our living room, and in my favorite chair! They are all so so so sweet and are only here for a few days to use our biggest conference room. I even get to see a lady I job shaddowed about 2 months ago! That was a nice surprise.
I did a few loads of laundry and as one was just about to finish I realized I washed my pocket knife… Ugh. It’s okay though! Gerber makes a mean toy!
Today felt shorter and I can’t believe I move in 15 days!!
-The Plant Lady
Day 9
Forest: 6 Rachel: 3
Injuries: -this bruise… See below if you dare!
Tick count: 0
Tick total: 2
So it’s not officially official but the Plant Lady is moving… to Sanibel, Florida!!
I just got the job offer and will be working with the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation. They recently opened a brand new native plant nursery and garden center. We’d also be doing some local landscaping!
I am so excited to start this new adventure and have all of you along for the ride!!!
Everyone I have talked to has such wonderful things to say about the staff and the work that they do there. I have already spent hours talking to my new boss and I am going to fit right in with the team!
Thank you to everyone that sent out good vibes for me recently! I hope you continue to follow my adventures!
-The (happiest) Plant Lady (ever!)
Today is The Plant Lady’s day off!
Matt and I decided to work extra hours throughout the week so that we could take Friday off! I am headed to gram’s for some R&R!
Anyways back to our regularly scheduled program.
Thursday was a slowwwww day since we treated it like Friday. We spent the entire day doing roadside foliar spraying. I drove 3 mph for about 9 hours yesterday and it’s safe to say I don’t want to be driving the slow ever again! Ever!
Not too many pictures today since I was mostly on the roads but we did find this awesome fungus!! So today you get fungus pseduo-Friday instead of Fern Friday:
It was probably as big as my face! So cool! I’m not sure how to go about identifying this… The Plant Lady is not the Fungus Lady.
They also finally set up the signs for the areas we are working (most of them anyways…) so I wanted to show you this larger patch of the second wistera site. It doesn’t look like much but where the central trees turn into more forest and edge (where the wisteria really takes off) is where we have already treated. The larger kind of mass that is in the middle was a Black Walnut tree that the wistera just took over! We treated it and it’s already looking better!
The little sign say “Black Walnut Plantation Established 1984”
The state forest is made up of particular plantations like these typically they are planted by the governemt specifically for timber harvesting so the trees in the plantations are all very valuable woods. It’s an interesting concept that I didn’t know happened before I started working here!
Over all Thursday was a great imposter of Friday this week.
-The Plant Lady
Day 8
Forest: 5 Rachel: 3
Injuries: -I’ve been icing my shin but this bruise is going to be huge!! Any pressure on it, even just from my socks, is so painful! You can start to see the purply bruise near my ankle on my left shin in the picture below.
Tick count: 0
Tick total: 2
It’s my one week anniversary of working! I’ve already learned ao much about invaisives, invasive removal techniques, and I’ve even learned some about myself!
Today was a long day. We started off the morning by doing some roadside foliar spraying. Then we headed over to the barn and worked on some barberry!
I had a bit of a tumble today. It’s not just a myth that wet logs are slippery… They seriously are slippery. I fell flat on my left shin and man is it gonna leave a bruise. But afterward I found this amazing Chocolate Tube Slime (fungus) (Stemonits)
Look at it spore! Such a cool thing to see!!
-The Plant Lady
Day 7
Forest: 5 Rachel: 2
Injuries: -more bruises -extra large bruise on my poor poor shin!
Tick count: 0
Tick total: 2
What a day. I’m exhausted. Here’s a list of why I’m glad this day is over:
1. I started the morning off by breaking the straw for my water bottle.
Work was started off this morning hiking the same trail as yesterday but this time foliar treating multiflora rose. It was a long morning but fairly easy!
2. At lunch the woman who helps clean our cabin didn’t really understand that we only get 30 minutes for lunch and sh talked to me for about 20 minutes about cleaning everything. Then my boss wanted to kow why I took a 50 minute lunch.
3. I broke a spray bottle and had to clean up all the herbicide that was in it. Very sticky and annoying!
We finished the afternoon by roadside treating the multiflora rose and barberry along the main road. I drove the huge truck so that was pretty fun!
4. Just as we were about to call it a day our boss called Matt and told him that all the plumbing in the cabin is out. We can’t use the toilets or the showers or the sinks or any drains at all! The managers of the fire headquarters were trying to help fix the plumbing issue but they couldn’t figure it out so we got an extra special key to the fire headquarters so we could use their bathrooms and creepy showers. When I went to use the shower it was so old that no water came out at all. I was very annoyed at this point and decided that rather than mess with it I would just use the gallon jugs of water I had for drinking back in my room. That turned out fine but the shower was still creepy!!!
This was a terribly long post so here’s a picture of a tiny tulip poplar that is growing out of the side of a dead tulip poplar. Nature is so stinkin’ cool.
-The Plant Lady
Day 6
Forest: 4 Rachel: 2 (I caught a tick before it latched, lucky again!)
Injuries: nothing a great yoga session didn’t work out!
Tick count: 1
Tick total: 2
These brusises will never go away…
What a whirlwind of a day! Matt and I decided that we want to take Friday off so we have started tacking on a few hours to the work day to reach our weekly goal so today we worked our first 7 to 5. A 10 hour day is just a little bit crazy but worth it when a 3 day weeked is what you’re working towards!
We worked with this beast all day:
We got out to our spot a little after 7:15 and got to work.
We were pretty tired by 10:40 and decided to take a short break. Matt sat down but I wanted to explore so I hopped onto a path that led me across the small creek and face to face with this beautiful thing
Seeing mighty beeches like this guy make my nerdy biology/forester heart sing. You’ll noticed he’s marked blue, I wasn’t sure why and assumed it was from a recent timber sale. Would you just look at those roots?! I’m in love.
Eventually we convinced our boss to let us hike one of the trails and do some work there instead of the off-path stuff we usually do. That was pretty nice but the forest earned yet another point today and claimed my safty glasses. Super annoying.
My body is getting used to this work and my mind is finally settling in but it is just about time for me to start finding out about a different job that would take me to Sanibel Island! Cross your toes for me!
-The Plant Lady
Day 5
Forest: 4 Rachel: 1
Injuries: -just my regular old bruises -may have a care of no-see-ums which could be bad but I think it’s all in my head
Tick count: 0
Tick Total: 1
Yes! Friday is finally here! I need some R&R this weekend to gear up for another long week!
Today we worked on foliar treating an enormous erruption of wisteria. This is the first site for the wisteria project where we started cut stumping. That method worked fine on the smaller outer vines but as we reached the center of this outcropping well let’s just say it got a little insane. I can barely see my feet while walking through this wisteria forest. Honestly, I’m not sure how well treating it is going to work. I think we need another solution, though I’m not sure what that might be…
I was pretty excited to have stumbled upon this lovely fern that I’ve never seen before though! Its black stem and fragile leaflets reminded me of a maiden hair fern but something about the leaves growing in an almost heart shape kept me from positively identifying it. Here’s a picture and if I can ID it I’ll add an edit to this post!
I’m a little obsessed with how cute these are. I can’t wait to find out their name!
Edit: My initial thinking was correct! This is infact Adiantum pedatum or Maidenhair Fern!
Enjoy the weekend!
-The Plant Lady
Day 4
Forest: 3 Rachel: 1
Injuries: -my back is feeling much better after a healthy dose of yoga -I am exhausted and glad the week is done.
Tick count: 0
Tick Total: 1
You read that right. I had a dream about treating barberry. I don’t know what that really says about me but clearly I have barberry on my brain!
Today we decided to work on the wisteria project some more since the area where the barberry is would have been very muddy with yesterday’s rain. What was different about today was that we used a different technique to treat the invasive. We used what is called a foliar treatment. This treatment is very basic and involves spraying herbicide on all the leaves of the particular plant to kill it. We did this all day long! It was exhausting!
My co-worker Matt and I went to Chipolte for dinner and it was so yummy!
Anyways, here are some pictures because I am exhausted right now.
Here’s some wisteria that has taken over part of our project completely!
-The Plant Lady
Day 3
Forest: 2 Rachel: 1
Injuries: -my back is a bit better -my feet were very wet today
Tick count: 0
Tick Total: 1
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