02 Jul Every Aspect

Hello again!

I’ve been on the go and traveling like crazy these past couple of weeks, and I have many fun things to share!

I want to start off by saying: when my internship said that I was going to be involved in multiple projects, they certainly weren’t kidding! And I’m very happy that this has been true so far.

Mountain Home

Following the week after my site visit, I went with several bio techs to Mountain Home, Idaho on a spray trip! I’ll be honest, I was really hoping to see some trees and mountains while we were there. I was totally wrong… However, that didn’t take away from the fact that I learned many things during this trip! Spray trips consist of very long days consisting of slow driving, identifying invasive plants, and spraying them. I didn’t participate in spraying, however I did lots of driving for my colleague as he sprayed. I even learned how to drive a manual truck- and a diesel one at that! The techs were very impressed that I was able to catch on too! It felt pretty cool to hear that I did well in that aspect.

My colleague and I saw some really cool oddities while we were out and about throughout the week! We saw so. many. Mormon. crickets. Turns out they’re not even crickets at all! They’re actually in the same family as Katydids, and they’re flightless. Which made so much sense as we watched them during their exodus towards… who knows where honestly.

It was raising a lot of questions between my colleague and I. Where are they going? Why are they specifically going south? How long do they live? Or, how long does this exodus last for? How’d they get so fat?

We were also assigned to go spray in an area I like to call, “dummy town” It was basically a shooting range for the military. At some point we also had to drive though a dirt hill! I almost thought that we weren’t going to get over it, thankfully we did!

Overall, the spray trip went really well and it was also pretty nice to get away from my site for a couple of days!

Celebrate Invertebrates Day

Shortly after the spray trip, I participated in Invertebrates Day at the Mc Nary Wildlife Refuge! I was feeling a bit tired after coming back from Idaho the day prior; but I was looking forward to seeing people coming out to attend this event! Many stations were set up, and I even had my own! There was face painting, a cool microscope camera to analyze capture insects, and entire table with many live invertebrates (and a very educational program about them too)! Meanwhile, I helped in distributing nets for little ones and their grown ups to catch some critters!

If there’s anything that gives me joy, it definitely has to be parents bringing out their kiddoes to engage in educational activities like these. It beings me even more joy to see parents from the Latinx community bringing their kids and seeing the look on both of their faces when I’m able to talk to them in Spanish. Growing up, I didn’t many chances to participate in these types of activities, and a lot of it had to do with language barriers. Having these interactions with those parents had a tremendous impact, as several of them told me how great it was that they had someone like me as a part of this event. I cant tell you how amazing that felt. Overall, I’m still enjoying every aspect of this internship. I’m grateful for sure.

Before I get sappy, that’s all from me for now. Expect another post very soon!

More Photos!