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Hi world,
The first big issue of the day was the lone radish found in the fridge today. We tried to peddle it onto everybody on the crew, but most people thought it looked too smooshy, and nobody wanted to smoosh. Amy and I eventually split it in half and ate it before jumping in the car. Picture attached. It turned out to actually be one of our spicy radishes. I think that was appropriate because today was a spicy day.
 Spicy radish. Would you have eaten it? This day started out with distant sheets of rain that slowly crept up to base at the Hjelm House, forcing us to do indoor work. When the rain cleared around 9:30, crew members did bee observation videos. Some people were viewing bees for the first time, others were going out for their second stints. We saw some of the same patterns today that we say two days ago — Laura saw over 20 bees at Steven’s Approach, while other sites were pretty destitute. Other crew members worked on mapping and pulling hawkweed for a hawkweed eradication experiment in experimental plot 1. Also, we finished collecting our qGen2 experiment data for the year, freeing up more time and plastic toothpicks for other projects.
At lunch, to supplement our training yesterday on flower deformities, we talked about our own various human deformities, including dislocated fingers, weird moles and warts, and bruised ribs. We may make a fun little trip this weekend into Alexandria to visit an urgent care facility. From there, most of the crew split off to do phenology and GPSing. Alyson went to the bog, and Leah finished setting up plots for her own pollinator observations, and the family stayed behind to weed (including some gnarly thistles). I went up the Landfill bloc geotagging with Alex, with Abby and Lea doing phenology at the sites ahead of us and catching over 50 new buds. We GPSed over 60 flowers alone at Around Landfill and got over 80 flowers total. James and Will were able to finish mapping five sites on their own. All of this done with zero people getting electrocuted on the electric fence near the Landfill.
 Alex narrowly escapes death, checking a tag for an an Echinacea under the electric fence at Around Landfill. At home, Leah and Amy made dank filafel and salad. We all discovered that mint works just as well as dill in tzatziki sauce. After that, we played Farkle well into the night, with Amy “Farkle Queen” Waananen winning two games, the first one in a wild horse race with Lea “The Farkle Hustler” Richardson. We look forward to our Friday Pizza and Farkle night tomorrow, followed by more Farlke-related activities over the long weekend.
One of my favorite activities last summer, while part of Team Echinacea 2015, was recording phenology data. We knew today was going to be the second time this week where complete phenology data would be taken for all remnant sites and experimental plots, so needless to say I was quite excited when I arrived this morning. After putting my lunch in the refrigerator, I sat at the long wooden table on the porch and looked over at the list of phenology routes. Soon teams were formed, routes decided, and after grabbing some tags, flags, and twist ties, we were on our various ways.
The list of sites to survey is extensive! I drove with Alex and Amy down to East Riley, starting at the southmost remnant site in our route. After visiting a few sites we met up with Leah and Abby at Loeffler’s Corner. I noticed Loeffler’s Corner still had many buds which weren’t yet flagged. Then the five of us headed up to Landfill to make quick work of assessing flowering day for each of the heads currently shedding pollen.
One plant that could have easily been mistaken as “Rays up 1cm” already had one anther producing pollen!
Alex working at Riley with the morning sun behind him! After lunch we had more phenology to do, and we realized that we needed to GPS the flowering plants at some more remnant sites. Experimental plot p2 still had many rows that needed to be searched for flowering plants and phenology, Alyson needed some supplies from Alexandria (for her independent project), and Alex needed to watch some of the pollinator visit videos that were recorded yesterday. We split into various teams and I ended up with James for the remainder of the afternoon. The two of us worked great together down at Loeffler’s Corner. We tried our best to find every remaining unflagged head and GPS each plant. By the end of the afternoon we were all hot and tired, but so excited about finishing the GPSing for all of Loeffler’s Corner! Back at the Hjelm house, everyone did their chores and wrapped up the long day.
 While working at Loeffler’s Corner, James and I saw (and heard) four trains pass by. Needless to say we were definitely repeating back tag numbers while taking GPS points! For dinner, Alex made an amazing Ratatouille with summer vegetables and goat cheese. Many of us ended the night with showers and ice cream- perfect after a long day of phenology fun!
Today was the first day of Team Echinacea’s pollinator observations! A number of genera were tentatively identified, including a number of small black bees and Agapostemon. As I sat in the field today, I encountered a pair of mating bees (picture below) on an Echinacea head.
 Pair of unknown bees mating on an Echinacea head while the female forages. The female’s scopae were chock full of pollen, and it was a great way to start this season’s pollinator observations! I also saw a few bumblebees today, buzzing around but not visiting Echinacea heads. All around, it was a great day of observations. On my last few observations, I came across a pretty big bug. It decided to chill out on my arm for a while until I finally finished my last observation and returned to the Hjelm house for lunch.
A Big ‘ol bug (of unknown species) who decided to take up residence on my arm for a while this morning. It was interesting to note that many observers noticed that as the day wore on, more and more pollen was (presumably) collected by pollinators until there was a time when little to no pollen was able to be observed on Echinacea, and after this time pollinator observations were few and far between. This seemed to happen even at Landfill (where I was located), even though there were a relatively greater number of flowering pollinators than at some smaller sites. It was also interesting that though there were relatively more flowering plants, there were fewer pollinator observations at Landfill than at some of the smaller fragments.
I can’t wait to continue pollinator observations in the near future, and to observe the changes in pollinator diversity as the Echinacea flowering season continues!
After a nice, relaxing weekend, we were ready for our breezy and busy Monday. We split up into teams this morning to accomplish things like phenology, Stipa harvesting, using the GPS and finding more q2 seedlings. Lea and I took one of the routes to some of the prairie remnant sites to assess phenology of Echinacea. Lea helped me become so much more confident identifying the flowering day and style persistence of each plant, so she gets a special shout-out for answering (and re-answering) all of my questions.
 An “Instagram-worthy” view taken during our drive to remnant sites We all convened for lunch to hear Kevin Kotts speak about his job as Wildlife Manager with the Minnesota DNR. The team learned that he has many different jobs, including work in wetland, grassland, and wildlife management. It was really interesting to learn about all of the ongoing conservation and restoration projects in the five-county area.
After lunch, it was back to work to finish what we had started before lunch. However, we mixed up groups, so I was able to go out to Landfill with Amy, Will, and Alex to learn how to use the GPS and jam out to a bit of Taylor Swift.
Finally, at the end of the day, we all met back up to chat about our progress and get a little insight into tomorrow’s adventure. Jennifer and Stuart taught us how to identify the pollinators we should expect to see during pollinator observations. Also, I got my mustard in the mail today, so hopefully I will be able to go to the bog soon to take the rest of my initial measurements for my I.S.
Today we recorded first flowering dates for the early-flowering Echinacea plants in our remnant populations. For short, we call this activity “phenology.” Now we want to estimate how many total plants will flower this year at each site.
At four remnants (eri, sap, yohe, and lfw), we also recorded as many plants as we could find in bud. The ratio of currently flowering plants (flPla), to all plants in bud (allPla) at these sites ranged from 9 – 27%.
The below table shows the estimates (guesses) of how many plants will flower at each site this summer based on the assumption that 10% (guessHigh) and 25% (guessLow) of plants at each site are already flowering.
> aa[order(aa$guessLow), ]
site proFl allPla flPla guessLow guessHigh
12 nwlf 0.00 2 0 0 0
16 rrxdc 0.00 2 0 0 0
20 tower 0.00 1 0 0 0
23 woody 0.00 1 0 0 0
5 gc 0.50 2 1 4 10
17 sgc 1.00 1 1 4 10
10 lcw 1.00 2 2 8 20
11 nrrx 1.00 2 2 8 20
22 tplot 0.50 4 2 8 20
25 yohw 0.67 3 2 8 20
3 eri 0.09 33 3 12 30
6 kj 1.00 3 3 12 30
15 rrx 0.43 7 3 12 30
21 th 0.75 4 3 12 30
24 yohe 0.22 18 4 16 40
1 aa 0.56 9 5 20 50
19 sap 0.19 26 5 20 50
4 eelr 0.54 13 7 28 70
18 sppe 0.57 14 8 32 80
2 alf 0.50 20 10 40 100
13 on27 0.60 25 15 60 150
8 lfw 0.27 74 20 80 200
7 lfe 0.39 62 24 96 240
14 ri 0.44 54 24 96 240
9 lce 0.74 34 25 100 250
>
These estimates will help us decide which populations to choose for our planned systematic observations of bees this summer.
Today, June 26th, little Scott’s mind was blown (see below).
Scott trying to fathom how an ice cream sandwich could be so perfect. Yes, the most perfect and tastiest of ice cream sandwiches was created in Kensington today. Kensington is no longer the just the birth place of America but now the birth place of the most divine and exquisite ice cream sandwich. A stunning combination of chocolate brownie-cookie and mint chocolate chip ice cream in the perfect ratios created a treat that not only holds rank among ice cream sandwiches, but ALL sandwiches. Additionally, the “mouth-feel” was exceptional.
Energized by the ice cream, a spontaneous and rambunctious frisbee session began and superlatives were awarded.
Alyson: Best Mind Games and Most Intimidating Eye Contact
Amy: Best Dinosaur Noises
James: Longest Reach and Best Fake-outs
And then the game got serious when we asked the REAL questions: “How many ice cream sandwiches is too many ice cream sandwiches?” and “Should we wash out feet before we get in bed or should we just put socks on?”
Stay tuned.
So far our weekend has been busy but fun! We started the morning off with a family breakfast of eggs, vegetables & hash browns that other Lea and I cooked. Scott then helped his professor Harmony Dalgleish from the College of William & Mary sample milkweed populations on route 37. The Town Hall group then went to Elbow Lake for swimming, diving, and sunbathing for a few hours. We decided Amy has the best dive and James has the best cannonball. James was also able to touch the bottom of the lake with his feet (granted he is the tallest in the group).
After grabbing lunch back at town hall we headed to Alexandria for a shopping trip at GoodWill and Cub for groceries. Alyson was able to pick up mason jars to collect insects from her bog and Alex found more shirts for field work. Alyson & I also picked up a pitcher from Walmart to make some sun tea this weekend. Half the team (the carnivores) headed to Will’s house to try his ribs while the vegetarians returned to town hall to rest after the long day.
Will’s infamous backyard!
 Alex and Leah with one of the first flowering plants of the season! Happy Stir-Friday, everybody! We had a very productive day here in Kensington. More and more plants are flowering in the remnants, and we started out the morning by assessing phenology at the Riley and East Riley sites. From there we split into groups to check on flowering plants in the other remnants. The team convened for lunch, then split into smaller groups again. Leah, Alex, and I went to the Landfill sites to flag and do phenology. After that, we came back and found more q2 seedlings.
Gretel, Will, Lea, and James went to p2 to tackle flagging and doing phenology there. Word on the street is that it will be another big year for flowering at p2, but fewer than last year. We’ll see! Meanwhile, Scott, Stuart, Alyson, and Laura collected Stipa in p1. While doing so, they discovered that something or someone has been eating the Stipa! Why?! How?! It is so pokey! Current hypotheses propose that deer have been browsing, but the motivation they would have for eating a grass with such bad mouthfeel is unclear.
We finished the day with rootbeer floats. Yum! And because it was stir Fry-day at Town Hall, Alex made us all a tasty stir-fry for dinner. We’re looking forward to a fun weekend and the busy weeks ahead with increased flowering, pollinator observations, and more!
Today we went out looking for pollen producing Echinacea heads, after finding one at East Elk Lake Road and in experimental plot 1. We started looking for flowers at Steven’s Approach and we found one that had started producing pollen today! After searching at Steven’s Approach some of us went out to scout other remnants for plants that had already begun flowering. We found 18 flowering plants! One at East Riley started flowering about 5 days ago! After visiting all of the remnants we took a break for lunch and heard about Lea and James’ independent projects.
The team learns about recording data on flowering phenology and finding flowering plants! First flowering plant at Steven’s Approach! Amy and James tagging flowering Echinacea Echinacea on day 5 of flowering at East Riley After lunch we headed down to experimental plot 1 to continue searching for stipa, we searched all the rows and found about 130 flowering plants. One of the plants had over 200 fruits! We ended our day measuring seedlings in q2.
Finding flowers this morning means we have to get on top of thoroughly searching the remnants for plants that will flower this summer so we can get flowering phenology and demography data from them. We have our work cut out for us!
This week the crew pushed on cleaning and re-checking seeds and counting achenes. I spent a good amount of time prepping seeds to be frozen for long term storage. These seeds are from several different experiments in 2013 and 2014 and have not been X-rayed. They must be placed in the dryer for two weeks, which removes enough internal moisture to avoid the seed rupturing when frozen at -20 degrees Celsius. These E. angustifolia seeds join the Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank here at the Chicago Botanic Garden. This collection has aimed to bank at least one representative sample of every species found in the tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Multiple populations have also been sampled for more than 500 species that are deemed critical to prairie restoration, so our seeds are in good company!
Seeds from multiple experiments in 2013 going in the dryer.
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