Today was a relaxing day for team Echinacea. Dayvis and Marie headed out in the wee hours of the morning to Fargo where they did some exploring and checked out a Nordic Festival. Ilse and I headed over to Alexandria in the morning to do our first load of laundry of the summer and to visit the farmers market. Reina was also in Alexandria checking out more books at the library and doing some shopping of her own. The afternoon didn’t have too many highlights — the refrigerator got reorganized and Ilse and Sarah B went out for runs. Kory returned from the cities and I finished my book (Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese — I highly recommend it), and then we all cooked up various fixings for dinner. Our final team member (Sara Z) will be joining us tomorrow. A couple days ago we moved around various furniture to create a cozy living space in the loft. Check it out!

Although we are down two team members (Kory left today for the weekend, and Mike will be gone for the next week), the crew accomplished everything on the agenda today.

In the morning, we assessed the flowering status of Echinacea in the ’99 South garden. Because plants are spaced at 33cm, it can be very easy to forget at which position you were last measuring. According to Gretel, however, it is not all about using the meter stick: having a good approximate distance in mind can really boost efficiency.

After we finished in the ’99 South garden, we moved on to assess flowering in the ’96/’97 and ’99 gardens. For each plant, we noted the presence of aphids as well as whether or not the plant was expected to flower. Only 2 plants possessed conspicuous aphids.

In the afternoon, the conditions couldn’t have been better for a third day of Stipa searching! This particular activity seems to be the most polarizing of anything we have done thus far. Out of everyone, Sarah derives the most enjoyment from searching for this elusive grass – this is likely due to the fact that she consistently finds the greatest number of Stipa plants. Today, however, Gretel topped her by two plants. At the end of the day, the whereabouts of 43 Stipa were noted and logged.

Sarah and Gretel drove to Stapphanson later in the afternoon to look for flowering Echinacea. While they were doing that, Dayvis, Lydia, Ise, and I went out to Hegg Lake. Dayvis looked for flowering Echinacea to use in his pollinator experiment, while I flagged the seven angustifolia parents of the one year-old hybrids that I’ll be studying.

On the home front, grilled cheese with tomato and onion is on the dinner menu for tonight. Reina found a loaf of blue, moldy bread in the fridge, and rumors abound regarding the origin of the abandoned walker in the basement.