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Hello Everyone! It was calm sunday here. However some people did end up doing research, such as Davis, Marie, and Sarah B. Reina and I went to Hegg Lake just to get outside and walk around the prairie. The Flax are blooming making it very beautiful.
On our way back to the car we even saw a almost blooming Echinacea!
Now that the echinacea will be blooming things are going to get a wee bit busy here! Kory On a gloomy day in Kensington, the team managed to make the most of it. In the morning, Sarah B went to look for flowering plants on some of the remnant sites and then spent some time with her parents in the afternoon. Sarah Z decided to have an adventurous day and go to Maplewood park. The four of us left at the town hall, took it easy and ate delicious homemade cookies. What a beautiful 4th of July! This morning was jammed packed with grass. Team Echinacea did another round of searching for stipa followed by an assessment of dichanthelium in the ’99 south garden. Jennifer Ison and her father came and helped out with both these surveys and will be around for a couple weeks. In other news: Sara Z found a massive (nearly 1m) and intact snake skin which she kindly bestowed upon an excited Sarah B.
After all the grass searching we all went our separate ways (or rather back to the town hall) to put together our various potluck fixings and then met up with Stuart and his family at Elk Lake where we feasted upon a variety of delicious food. I definitely set a personal record with the number of deviled eggs consumed in one afternoon, and I don’t think I was the only one uncomfortably full. Dayvis entertained us with his Bandola while we digested and then many of us went out for canoe rides. After struggling a bit with steering the canoe properly, Dayvis, Hattie, and I smoked the other canoe in a “race” back to shore. After more swimming, snacking, and socializing it was time to head back and rest up for watching fireworks this evening. Happy 4th of July everyone!
Today started of with a bang as part of the crew headed off to go strawberry picking at the holmes city berry farm this morning. We got just enough to tide us over until the weekend, or maybe just enough to last some of us through the afternoon…if we’re lucky… But alas, it was back to work. Sarah B, Sara Z and Stuart (aka the S club) headed out for the Preserve for a superb time. The rest us did a solid hour of stipa searching then we finished up the morning assessing cg1. Then at lunch Stuart gave us all a very interesting lecture on Echinacea sex, needless to say it was very scandalous and left a few Echinacea highly embarrassed as some of their photos (mid pollination!) were used in the presentation. After lunch the crew went their separate ways, most worked on independent projects. Marie, Dayvis, and Sara Z headed off to find plants out by the county park among other things. Kory continued with some preliminaries for his project. Reina and I finished up assessing cg1 with the help of Sarah B, Per, and Gretel. The last of the crew to return today was Lydia after a long afternoon battling ants during her aphid addition in cg1, but we can proudly say she did return victorious: Lydia 1, Ants 0, however there were a few casualties (namely aphids) that regretfully did occur during the process. All in all another great day for Team Echinacea! Hello everyone! Today Team Echinacea was extremely productive in all of our endeavors. In the morning the team continued the search for Stipa (a.k.a. porcupine grass) that was planted in the common garden. After about a hour we switched gears and looked for flowering echinacea plants in the common garden in preparation for the crossing experiment this summer. Reina and Pam continued collecting data on photosynthetic rate and even finished a portion of their data set! Huzzah! After lunch we had time to work on our individual projects! Ilse continued her work on “R”, Sarah B got a solid amount of data entry done, and worked on her data sheets. Marie, Dayvis and Sara Z went to Hegg Lake to look at hybrids and Echinacea pallida respectively. Gretel and I made pollinator exclusion bags for my project, as well as the crossing experiment. Here is Gretel cutting the bridal veil!
And me sewing the bags together! I got to work on a awesome old singer sewing machine (the best part is that it folds into a desk!).
Thats all from me today! -Kory Perfect weather! Just like my home country (beautiful). Today morning, we searched for Stipa grass and flowering Echinacea (My favorite task) in the common garden. Afternoon, we searched for more Stipa grass. Then, we worked in our projects. Marie received a scan and starting playing with it. Lydia continued her work with aphids. I received my cameras and started practicing the difficult art of insect hunting. Kory was preparing his cameras to identify pollinators, and Sara B. was checking status of plants in several sites of the area. We ended the day eating a delicious chili prepared by Ilse. Hello everyone! Today was a very nice day up here at Kensington! So nice in fact that several of us went to the lake up near Hoffman. We had a blast and even saw a shark, though it ended up being just a toy… On other news, Sara Z, the last team member that is living in Kensington, joined us today. She safely arrived from Chicagoland around 8 and got settled in. Hope Sara is excited for Stipa searches, because I am! -Kory 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!
Today I went with Gretel to Staffanson to look for flowering plants. We walked along the east and west transects and found quite a few plants that should flower next week or the week after that! I still don’t know exactly where the transect lies in the large remnant that is Staffanson, but I’m sure I’ll learn! 🙂 Sarah B |
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