CLIP Week 11: Life in the Field

We started our amazing Monday morning by heading to Thompson Road Preserve for a workday. Kevin, Daniel, Anthony and I (Jazzy), weren’t working with the volunteers, though. We went to a separate area in pairs to brushsaw stubborn honeysuckle, while I followed after herbiciding the stumps to prevent any future growth.

We all worked on this for the majority of the morning, switching between areas, and eventually stopping for lunch in the bright, scolding sunlight. But the afternoon made up for it – I got the chance to drive the UTV around Thompson while we looked for stiltgrass, a very invasive grass that was thought to be seen near the back of the property. Thankfully it wasn’t stiltgrass, and we got to continue on. 

Tuesday started off with a visit to Somme Prairie in Northbrook to help with seed collection and tour the site. It was really cool to see a prairie that has a long history of management, and it was a nice example of what our prairies could look like!

We also got good advice about workdays and how we should prioritize certain work over others. After we helped out with removal of purple loosestrife in the “Wet Naughty Corner” (named by our friends at Somme) we headed to Thompson Road Preserve to learn about archaeology with Ders Anderson, TLC board member. As we learned about arrowheads, flakes and chert, I (Anthony) got stung by a sweat bee and it hurt way more than I was expecting, which was really nice for me. However, the rest of the day digging with Ders was a lot of fun, even though we didn’t find much!

A gloomy, rainy day was ahead. On Wednesday we almost had full attendance, aside from Denver’s absence. We all headed to Yonder Prairie to get a good look at some previously worked on areas and what was needed to progress successfully. We had buckets of seeds to spread and just ventured off, throwing the seed everywhere we could manage.It was very muddy, but we were pleasantly surprised to come across tons of frogs.

We eventually headed back to the office for lunch and to catch up on the rather neglected blog (oops!). This also gave us the chance to start on the presentation for our research project. We chose a cute template with even cuter colors, transferring all he data collected from the Monday prior.

On Thursday, Kathryn, Daniel and Kevin got a taste of life without us interns, as we were all off for different reasons. We assume that it hurt their hearts and lots of tears were shed, and if they ever say otherwise, please understand that they’re coming from a place of hurt and sorrow and don’t know what they’re talking about. 

Friday was a more laid-back type of day. We’ve had a very cloudy week in general, so it was an office day for most. I (Jazzy) worked on the blog and added some more info to our research project presentation. But, a lazy morning only leads you to a busier afternoon. I joined Kevin and Laura at Boger Bog to clear and haul some brush with Elyse from the McHenry County Conservation District. It was very simple workday stuff, despite working at an angle of 45 degrees. One wrong step I would’ve snowballed down the hill and never been seen again.