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There’s no such thing as an ordinary day during the summer for Team Echinacea but today was particularly exciting because we accomplished many different small (but highly necessary) tasks. We started the day sending 4 people out to do phenology in the remnants, p1, and p2. This took us around 30 minutes because there are now less than 20 flowering heads. Out of a total 4293 flowering heads in the places that we’ve been doing phenology only about 0.4% of the heads are still flowering. During phenology part of the team cut down the sumac and pulled thistle in the ’99 south plot. After that the team split in two and half of us organized g3 (picture tomorrow, it looks great!), and the other half dug up bird’s foot trefoil near p1 on the road. Amy GPS-ed a couple more points that still needed GPS-ing while Abby and Gina continued to tame aphids.
 Amy and Stuart hard at work During the afternoon, Hegg Lake was the place to be with gallium being harvested and data taken on thistles. Will, Ali, and Danny did some top quality film work trying to get a measuring protocol video. We also placed 3 RFID capsules at one of our less stable sites to see if they’ll survive the winter. Stuart not only got the demography protocol good to go for the rest of us, he also made it readable on all devices! Finally, and perhaps just as important as the rest, Erica (Ricky/Eric/Ricardo) got much bigger over the weekend! It’s a great start to what will be a productive week.
 Erica looks about as big as my finger!
On our day off, some members of Team Echinacea went up to Glendalough state park to camp for a night. It was a great weekend because lots of things could have gone wrong, but we were super lucky and almost nothing did! For example, one of our tents didn’t have a rainfly, but then Stuart and Gretel let us borrow one of theirs! Thanks Stuart and Gretel! But we didn’t even end up sleeping in it—more about that later!! We also didn’t have a reservation, but it turned out that there was a no-show at a campsite, so we got that one! The lady at the park office told us that if a person named Nathan showed up, we would have to tell him that we had taken his campsite, but fortunately Nathan never showed up. Confrontation avoided! It was a canoe-in site, but lacking a canoe, we hiked there. Thanks for carrying the cooler, Gina!
We ate sandwiches and then went to the water. We decided to try to swim across the lake even though we agreed we weren’t very good at estimating distance across water. Then we swam across the lake! The water was really nice and it only took 45 minutes. We saw a loon and a bald eagle while we were swimming. Katherine and Gina walked to meet us at the beach on the other side. Next, we all spent a good 10-15 minutes giggling in the waves by the shore because we were happy and probably a little dehydrated. Then we realized that the beach we were on was being rented out for a family reunion and everyone around us was probably related and wondering who the heck we were, especially because they would have been able to see us bobbing across the lake for the past half hour! Thanks for sharing the beach, Will family!
 Intrepid swimmers bob along swimmingly Next we walked back to our campsite. We built a fire in about 15 minutes which Katherine thought was kind of a while, but many of the rest us agreed was “about as fast as we had ever started a fire before.” We had corn and hot dogs and took a lot of pictures of the fire, hot dogs, and the sunset (see example below).
See similar pic on Gina’s instagram Once it got dark we started looking at the stars and were doing that when two park rangers showed up. “Hey folks just wanted to let you know that your tents are a little bit off the tent pad and also there is a storm a-brewing in North Dakota that has hurricane-force winds and golf-ball sized hail and it’s heading this way,” was approximately what he said. We mumbled responses and then he said, “Tell you what, the folks at the yurt campsite vacated the premises early so I’ll go ahead and leave that unlocked so you can go there if things get dicey.” So we said, “Thanks officer!” and after several minutes of discussion we decided that the opportunity to sleep in a yurt was too good to pass up, especially with the possibility of inclement weather. So then we got to sleep in the yurt and it was warm and dry which was nice because it sounded like a pretty gnarly storm!
The yurt was very sturdy and well furnished. We woke up and took some more pics (see below). Next we ate breakfast at a nice little place in Battle Lake, which we all agreed was “a really cute town.” Then Ali drove us home and we made it back to Town Hall safe and sound! What a great and lucky weekend!
Da yurt!
Today was hot. Like, REALLY hot. But there was work to be done, and Team Echinacea is a tough bunch. So, despite the soul-crushing heat and humidity, we managed to finish measuring in P1!!! Yay!!! It was a monumental moment, and a great way to finish off the week. We celebrated/rehydrated with watermelon and root beer floats!
In other news, progress was made on the aphid and seed harvesting fronts today. Phenology is continuing to wind down, and Ricardo the caterpillar is eating everything in site.
 He/she is getting so big! The team enjoying root beer floats
Today was an exciting day for Team Echinacea! While most of the day was spent measuring, it was made much more invigorating by the constant threat of rain – which we felt drops of from time to time – and by Ruth’s visit and Stuart’s return. We heard about the many exciting talks that Stuart went to at ESA and discussed how our phenology research is going to both fit in and stand out in a wonderful way. Speaking of large data sets, we’rd almost done measuring p1 and will be moving on to plenty of other fun things soon.
The team measuring plants in big batch During lunch we learned about how the 1600 gallon septic tank was emptied yesterday and contained 2000 gallons of waste. How that was possible, the world may never know, but here in the Echinacea Project we redefine what’s possible.
Gretel describes the overfull septic tank as Stuart and Ruth listen
Today is Taylor’s last day which is really sad because she is a cool cat who will be greatly missed. This summer would have been very different without Taylor. She has brought lots of joy and laughs to the town hall. Taylor will be missed dearly.
Taylor is heading out to the Chicago Botanic Gardens to present her poster on the invasive potential of Echinacea palida! She’s been giving us her pitch frequently and it is sounds really good. Good luck to Taylor at the Chicago Botanic Gardens and with all of her adventures in the future! We better see you soon!
In other news it was superhot and humid today. We got treated last week and Monday with cooler and less humid days. Much of Team Echinacea has been zipping off our pant legs and kicking off out shoes in favor of our sandals in spite of the possibility of Chiggers and ticks. We did a little bit of phenology this morning. It did not take long because there were only 26 plants to visit in the remnants. It’s crazy because it does not seem like it was long ago that we were spending all day doing phenology. After phenology we spent all day measuring Experimental Plot 1. I got to spend some time by myself Harvesting Galium for my independent project. We also made a Friend who we named Eric!
Our friend Eric!!
Everyone wore the tye dye that we made on Sunday! IT LOOKS AMAZING!!!
Model life Happiness!
August 11 was an extra hot day. We started the day with phenology and then worked on taking plant measurements in P1 before lunch. The wise decision was made to measure again after lunch and then quit measuring and work on personal projects during the most intense heat of the day! Turned out great! Sounds like the rest of the week is supposed to be extra hot as well. We are going to have to do measuring in the mornings I think. We are making good progress and should have at least P1 and the 99 garden done by weeks end! Phenology is taking very little time now, so it will soon be time for the next stage! Let’s hope for a good breeze tomorrow!
Sunday was a very special day for us at the town hall: our baby Ben turned 20! His sister Liz flew all the way up from Utah to visit him, and we got to hear about her research job out west. At 1, we all headed up to Barrett to see Hattie and Per perform in a production of Robin Hood that they’d been practicing all week at theater camp. It was a great show, and we even got to stay for a potluck afterwards! (Unfortunately, nobody had brought a hot dish for our non-Midwesterners to try.) When we got back to the town hall, we decided to tye-dye, something we’d been meaning to try all summer. Many items got tye-dyed, from shirts to socks to bedsheets to Ben’s knees. To cap off the night, we ate Ben’s birthday cake out at the gazebo, accompanied by a gorgeous sunset. It was a fun-filled day!
Per and Hattie at the end of the show Tye-dying fun! Ben’s beautifully decorated cake “Birthday Boy”
Yesterday in true Team Echinacea 2015 form, we planned our day surrounding eating adventures and a little bit of ecology. When I finally emerged from bed, I was greeting with the sweet sight of Amy hard at work in the kitchen preparing cinnamon buns for us all to enjoy! They were topped with a delicious cream cheese frosting.
 Cinnamon Buns! Sometime in the midst of this decedent feast, we wandered outside to discover heaps of corn and squash awaiting us on the front stoop! We have heard tales of secret zucchinis snuck into cars by gardeners with a bumper crop, but we never thought we would be so lucky to receive such treasures ourselves! Later in the morning, Stuart told us that the anonymous deliverer was in fact a friend of his and Gretel’s named Bob. Bob, if you are reading this our deepest and most satisfied thank you goes to you.
 Ben, Gina, and Taylor ogle our special delivery!
After a lunch of grilled cheeses, we did some grocery shopping in Alex and prepared for a grill out at Runestone Park! Despite the loud thunder we heard as we loaded up the cars with grillable goodies, we remained optimistic about our evening plan. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans for us. As we approached the park, a torrential downpour hit and we decided to head back home to eat our dinner in the dry comfort of Town Hall. We ended the evening with a rousing viewing of “Cane Toads: An Unnatural History.” Which I believe all team members would recommend to documentary enthusiasts young and old.
 A froggy friend visits Taylor during measuring today. The team went out to the remnant sites this morning to assess phenology. Of the 1863 flowering heads from the remants this summer, only 26 are still flowering. Of these, 20 are in their “end flowering” phase, which means they only have a few days of flowering left. We finished doing all phenology, including p1 and p2 before 11 this morning. This is quite a contrast to a couple of weeks ago when pure phenology was an all-day job. We even had some time before lunch to clip sumac and Salix, two woody species which have crept into p1. At lunch we said goodbye to Stuart, who is flying to Baltimore for the ESA Annual Meeting. He will give a talk about the Echinacea Project tomorrow. After lunch we did a bit more land management work, pulling thistle and sweet clover from p8. After that much of the group headed back to p1 for more measuring. Today we measured plants that were planted in ’96, ’97, ’98. We contemplated the fact that many these plants are older than Will, Taylor, and Abby. Ali, Matt, and Ben went to Hegg to work on Ben’s independent project. They were testing different methods of seed collection (hand harvesting and using a seed sucker) on Galium. They came back with lots of seeds! This week we will continue measuring plants in p1 and working on independent projects.
After a very heavy rain last night, we got to start our work day 45 minutes later than usual. Even though we started late, we were able to finish phenology at all of the sites (including P1 and P2), and crosses for Q3 before lunch. At peak flowering time, we had over 2000 plants to check on in the remnants and today that number was down to 211.
Rare sight! This plant hasn’t begun flowering yet!
Gina and I had time to do an aphid treatment today. The results were very exciting! Of our 33 addition plants, 25 already had aphids on them. We also only found 1 aphid during our exclusion treatment!
Here are some of those cute little aphids!
Everyone measured for awhile before heading out to P2 to finish off our thistle pulling job. Stuart brought a watermelon out there for everyone to enjoy. It was the perfect way to end a great week!
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