Frazzled April into Glimmering May

Well….     2 months without a blip, a blurb, so much as a noun.  Not that I’m in high demand, but my psyche misses it.  My immediate circumstances leave me with good intentions of talking about the rhubarb I have marinating in grapefruit juice/rinds and sugar for jam, or the pies, or our lovely garden that is sprouting green beans and raspberries and lettuce, but alas….I’m knee deep – or neck-deep, bogged down and mired is more like it – in prep for field work:  it is taking over my brain.  It is almost as if there is no end in sight, though I know that is not true.  A new project is in the works and it is a monster. NSF has kindly given us 1.2-ish million dollars to discover some things over the next few years, and we are feverishly prepping to lay the ground-work for it.  We’ve said we’d do quite a bit.  More than what most of us argued we could do, from the get-go, but it turns out writing mentality and implementing mentality are two very different things.  Arguing about minutia and dribs and drabs when no one wants, or has time, to focus on such slop is not how I would have liked to move forward.  Thankfully, I hope and think we are past that and onto making it all happen.  The truck leaves in 11 days.  Even if we wanted to, we have no more time.

Long term, we are at a point where I am not worried.  The sites will be set up.  The research will be accomplished with our normal grace and skill, and it will be good.    

If you’ve never set up a million dollar research project in the middle of nowhere, I assure you, expenditures are front-end heavy.  We are currently $4 million deep in projects up there, so this is nothing new, but we are ramping.  We have a lot going on.  I just received a quote for 700 rough-hewn 2x6x10’s that need to be delivered to gps coordinate-identified spots and then we will tromp the lumber into wetlands, cut it with chain saws, and nail it together into plots which are spread across central/northern Alberta (a feat that will be mostly accomplished by variously-skilled and patiently-taught (hopefully) graduate and undergraduate students… ).  I have bought $7000 in weather stations….  Thousands of dollars in electrical bear fence supplies….  You don’t want to know how much pvc of all sizes…  over 3000 crank wires… 200 plastic buckets…  temperature buttons, temperature probes, hand-held thermometers…  DI water…. Gas standards…  bags, bottles, books…. oh my.  The list is growing and this isn’t even the half of it.   

So, a big sigh.  I’m just now seeing a glimmer before the next real-life-make-it-happen-obstacle slams me in the head.  Wish us all luck.  If you care to follow our adventures this summer, I have set up a blog for the research group to share their thoughts (http://55parallel.blogspot.com/).  We shall see how it goes, and hopefully the group will be posting some fun things over the field season for what is probably Meanook’s last hoorah (sad, so sad).  I’ll try to keep up, as well.  You’ll find me in Alberta soon.   For now, the garden really does grow, and the Peony in my backyard just started blooming today.  The bats are back, and spring is manifest in many many ways.  I will strive for non-work before the work takes over in a few weeks again, in earnest. 

Lingonberries, Bogs, and Bears

I just got back from a quick and wildly jam-packed trip to Alberta.  Two days into it and our sense of time was acutely distorted, and by the end we were all spinning.  Exhausting, but enjoyable, these fall trips to the boreal wetlands are usually my favorites.  The trees are turning gold, frost whitens the grasses in the pre-dawn light, and I am reminded that the heat of eastern PA will soon be a memory.  I can deal with some cool after this summer, and wow it was nice to wear a scarf again.

Into the field and along the trails, we foraged with the bears for cranberries, sweet and earthy honkin'-big blueberries, and the best lingonberries I’ve ever had.  Evidence for bears sharing our space was both interpreted and direct.  They were busy leaving piles of evidence everywhere.  I don’t blame them.  Those berries are irresistible.  Unbeknownst to us, a very large black bear joined us at Utikuma as we sprayed our plots with water (a paradox, I know) tromped out in backpack sprayers, and as he wandered into view with his head in the verdure, we took our cue and left the bounties of the bog to our fuzzy and somewhat scary friend.  Our hopes of making a wild-berry crisp that day were thwarted.

 

Utikuma, as you may recall, was burned just over a year ago.  I hadn’t been there since earlier this summer, and since then, the changes in the vegetation are incredible.  The mosses are coming back, the vascular plants are everywhere, and tiny baby spruce trees, all spiky-sprouts, hide among the recovering moss heads.   The charcoal-ed peat no longer stinks, but instead, has a not unpleasant  hint of an old house with a recently used fireplace.  Snares of naked black spruce branches threaten you with bodily harm and impalement (which will only get worse as the dead trees begin to really fall), but on the whole, it is a joy to witness the transformation making Utikuma a highlight of the trip.

 

Because Utikuma is an almost 3 hour drive north and west of our home-base Meanook, we sometimes stay at the Boreal Center where we feel most welcome.  This stay included a side-trip to Marten Mountain, which has been on my to-do list for quite some time.  We scaled the cobbled gravelly road in our F150 and had a vista of Slave Lake and vicinity that you don’t usually get in Alberta unless you’re in a helicopter.  My sense of well-being as we ate good food and drank wine around the campfire that night was palpable; and to boot, the stars were incredible.   

It was a decidedly productive and over-all fun trip.  The day of rain and a little time off today is helping with the re-entry.  Fall is starting to ease in today with an onslaught of grey and rain and wind and it makes me want to start cooking soups again.  I think tonight I will braise.  I am glad to be home.

Quadding 101

It is day two of rain here at the field station.  We are socked in.  Which is good for the Earth, but not so good for fieldwork.   But that is ok as we have been going hard since our arrival and we have a GC being installed today so we can measure more gasses.  That said, we got out earlier with some quads and bombed around the grounds to blow off some steam and learn a few things.

If you’ve never been quadding, you are missing a whole big hill of fun.  That sounds obnoxious and pretentious even to me, but I really think it is true.  And so I must define the word quadding, because is that even a real word?   By ‘quadding’  I mean ATV-ing four-wheel style.  It is exhilarating – a blast – a damn great time.   My good friend Brandon gave our crew some helmets and a few good tips and opened up some opportunity to learn on a rugged course at Meanook.  Seriously….  every last one of us had a great time. 

Some tips: 

Don’t be afraid to go fast into curves and lean into them (you can overcome the quad angling off good solid earth by shifting even ever so slightly to the opposite side).

Quad in pairs so when you try to wrangle your way over a log the size of your wheel, someone is there to angle you in the right direction when you find yourself anchored.  Puddles are sometimes a burden, also, if you navigate poorly.

Know the terrain so you can go wildly fast on the straight-away and slow down for the bucking bronco trenches. See also, point number two above.  

If you need to go under a fallen tree it is ok to put all your weight on one side of the quad to make room.

Big rubber boots that are awesome for wetland walking are not the best clutch workers.

I’m edified and still gaining courage and insight, and THAT seems a good metaphor for life.  Whatever the perspective, it was a great way to spend an early afternoon.

Meanook in Song

In the chill of the evening, the passerines are active with the sun still several hands high.  Tennessee Warblers dressed in yellowish green have invaded en masse and flit from tree to tree.  They are mistaking windows for pass-throughs much to the dismay of everyone here at Meanook.  One such warbler, recovering on a pine branch, finally flew off, but only after Kitten made leaps for it, pulling the bough low as if he was the one hanging on for dear life.  Hooray for the bird.  No doubt Kitten will find a snack elsewhere this evening but the warbler flies free.  White Throated Sparrows are chatting with the Chickadees and the rowdy Ruby Crowned Kinglets, the Blue Jays yell and swoop from low branch to low branch, and the Sapsuckers play percussive wood.  It is a symphony in the bush. 

Spring is arriving here with birds and blooms.  The cherries aren’t quite flowering yet, but they are knocking on that door.  It seems spring is a little early up here as it is also on the east coast.  Last year almost to the day, it snowed 5 inches.  Two days ago I was hot and sweaty looking at a collapsing permafrost mound. 

Our research puts us in what is called the discontinuous permafrost zone.  North of us, the earth is frozen year ‘round.  South of us, the soil thaws completely every summer.  Here, there are pockets of frozen mixed in with the thawed.  This zone is shifting northward and that thaw brings changes to the landscape and changes to the ecosystems.  Fire hastens this advancement, warming the earth as it scorches it with no chance of the peat recovering the cold of the next winter.  Last year was a doozy on the fire-front, and this year, seems like we are in for another.  Right now, 23 fires burn in Alberta with 345 fires since the burning season started this spring.  We drive through smoke on the way to our sites.  That acrid burn in the nose is not unfamiliar to us and puts me on edge.

Tomorrow we head north to the Mariana Lakes region of Alberta where we will spend the day in both bog and fen and hopefully not run into any bears or fire.  The travel allows for some fast truck window viewing, and since arriving, we’ve seen much:  a Bald Eagle, an Osprey, countless waterfowl and shore birds, Sandhill Cranes, Buteos, Falcons, Shrikes, Passerines of all shapes and sizes.  Our feathered friends are here and are welcoming us to Alberta and to spring.  The morning will bring the dawn of a new day and as we walk among the mosses the birds will sing.

Note:  The above was written 2 days ago… the total fires is now up to 390 as of 10 AM yesterday…   much potential for ignition.   We have only experienced a bit of smoke and smoldering.  So far so good.  More soon.