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Today we weren’t just Team Echinacea. We were Extreme Team Echinacea. Will used his monster truck derby announcing voice to let everyone know that what we were doing today was extreme. This morning, we were sent out on special missions to do phenology, pollinator observations, or both (so extreme). We finished everything and still had time to collect phlox seed and do an aphid treatment before lunch. Wow.
At lunch, we talked about fun afternoon project ideas, like seeing whose car has the best working AC and finding out which area lake is best for swimming. Instead of doing those things, we got right back out to measure P1, which has a climate similar to a sauna. Every group only had to measure 2 rows and we were done for the week.
Back at the Hjelm House, Scott found some aphids crawling on his shirt and adopted them as his own children. We all enjoyed some root beer floats, and Scott enjoyed his new found fatherhood.
 YAY FOR ROOT BEER FLOATS!!
 It was supposed to be sunny and hot. Remember what the forecast was for today? As I sat in the cold drizzle with goosebumps looking at a gray sky, I wished for the warmth that was predicted for the day. We started off early again this morning with pollinator observations. Early on in this endeavor, we realized that pollinators did not enjoy the weather, and many of us observed more lightning bolts than bees. Late in the morning, a few brave bees made their way to Echinacea heads to scavenge for pollen. By lunchtime many of us were still marveling at the coolness of the day. I believe it was about the time it was announced that we would prepare to head to P1 that we were suddenly transported to the Amazon rain forest.
The dappled light from the sun shown through a steamy haze while heat shimmered off the soggy tree leaves. We left our outpost at the Hjelm house and began our journey through the jungle to our research site in P1. Our object was to finish searching for and measuring INB2 plants, a project that had begun yesterday. We trudged through the dense underbrush. The air was close, and a hush fell over the column as we reached a clearing. It was our research site. We split into smaller groups to measure plants more efficiently, and made our way through the dense mass of damp grasses. Throughout our research, the quiet was disturbed by the call of Roxy, a doglike mammal native to the area. As the day progressed, the heat became more oppressive. It was only made worse by the constant threat of mosquito bites and ticks. By 4:00 PM we had made extensive progress and finished measuring INB2 plants. We treked back through the forest to our base.
Anyway, after that adventure, Scott, Alyson, Lea and I again swam in Elk Lake, which was immensely refreshing after the hot day. Amy stayed back and made some great lasagna for dinner. Tomorrow is another early start. Stay tuned for Xtreme Phenology tomorrow.
Hello, devotees,
There was a lot of hoopla over the weather today. It got up into the lower 90s with humidity ranging from 70 – 90%. The natives tell me that this is very hot and unusual for the area. For those fellow Virginians out there, it was maybe a little bit cooler than an average day.
To beat the heat, we started at 8:00 this morning. Leah and Alex started the day catching bees at Aanenson and the Landfill, while Jennifer and Laura returned to P2 (where the P apparently stands for ‘purgatory’). The rest of us did phenology. I went with Amy and Will to our transect Staffanson, where the burned West unit was in full bloom and the unburned East unit was on its way out. We found eight new flowering plants at Staffanson today. Lea and Jame did the Northwest route, where thankfully this time nobody was left behind. Gretel and Alyson knocked out the southwest route, while Abby did the East and P1 (no other P though).
Today’s lunch was one of our more controversial ones. For one, Lea ate two pieces of watermelon instead of one. Personally, I was fuming. Instead of eating watermelon, I was forced to eat one of Will’s tiny grapes. After lunch, a few of us enjoyed cups of shirts-on coffee, while strategizing for measuring plants in P1. Today we set forth to conquer INB2 — an experiment studying the fitness of inbred plants. See picture for summary.
 Relevant reading for measuring plants in P1
Amidst all the duff and dirt-colored staples, we put our meter sticks to good use measuring these crosses for an hour and a half. Mercifully, Stuart and Gretel allowed us to stop measuring early in the afternoon as we crossed the vaunted 90 degree threshold. From here, some went to Elk Lake, where I participated in an endurance water-treading contest that apparently nobody else was aware of, and still lost. The Wagenius family was also there, taking a quick dip before going to the library. Others stayed at the Hjelm House for independent project related work. We ate some great alfredo courtesy of Alyson, where the mystery ingredient was cheese curds. While eating, we were engrossed in a who-has-longer-arms tournament, where Laura pulled off several upsets but still came up just a little bit short of the crown. We’re preparing ourselves for tomorrow’s heat, turning on seemingly every appliance in the kitchen to make some ginger beverage and banana bread. We’re starting again at 8:00 tomorrow, but if today has taught us anything, it’s that it’s never too early to start sweating.
Lea does the reverse-sauna in the freezer.
Howdy floggers! This week in the lab, volunteers have been making great progress! Bag 6 (of 12) of Echinacea heads used for cleaning is just about halfway done. My personal progress while volunteering in the lab so far includes cleaning about ten Echinacea heads and counting 41 heads (or 5353 achenes) online. While counting, I encountered my first HUGE Echinacea head, it took about an hour and 15 minutes to clean! I also have been re-checking achenes for tails, otherwise known as florets, before they are weighed and x-rayed. I have re-checked 15 boxes with around 30 randomized samples each of achenes, however, most of the time, achenes don’t have their florets attached anymore. Finally, I have finished randomizing about 60 sample bags of achenes. It has been a successful week in the lab and we send a hello to our team members and partners out in the field! Here is a picture demonstrating how close each bag of Echinacea is to the finish line!
While almost any day during the summer is filled with teamwork, today was a particularly successful day for Team Echinacea 2016. This morning all of us at town hall worried that Laura might be having an allergic reaction worthy of a trip to Alexandria. We decided the best course of action was to head to the Hjelm house, let everyone on the team know what was going on, and figure out what to do from there. Jennifer generously drove Laura to Alexandria, the rest of us worked on GPSing and aphids while we waited for the sun and pollinators to come out. We regrouped later in the morning and drove out to complete another 800 combined minutes of pollinator observations in various remnants. Needless to say, before lunch we had already put a lot of teamwork into Teamwork Tuesday.
After lunch, Stuart gave us all great advice for writing successful proposals before we headed out to Hegg Lake. The rest of the afternoon was filled with measuring all of the remaining plants in p2. In pairs, we expertly worked to complete rows as efficiently as possible. At one point Stuart even exclaimed, “Now we’re cooking with gas!” By 4:15pm the team had finished measuring the entire plot, and the 50m tapes were expertly looped for future storage.
Even after work Teamwork Tuesday continued. Abby visited town hall for dinner, I picked up the CSA from Morris, Scott cooked, and Laura emerged much better after a long nap and two bowls of ice cream.
 Staffanson was beautiful during pollinator observations!
In honor of World Emoji Day, I have decided to describe our day in a series of emojis: 🐱🍜🚿💻📞😴👖. For those of you who cannot see the emojis or just do not understand, we had a quiet day at Town Hall. We did very little besides talking about cats, eating, showering, laundry, chatting with old friends, flogging, sleeping, and enjoying the holiday.
In other news, Laura finished knitting a sock today, and since there are no sock emojis, I will include a picture instead.
 Laura has knitted a sock! Laura is a free elf! I think we’re all excited to get back to work tomorrow so that we will have more to do and talk about.
Hello floglanders! Happy Saturday! How you doin’???
We started off the day today with pollinator observations! We did not see too many bees, but that did not stop us from having a good ole’ time! Jennifer gave us watermelon, and it was delicious! We painted and assessed shriveling for the pollinator intraspecific pollen load diversity project.
Afterwards, we went back to town hall and ate leftovers and souls. James did not partake in this meal. They were delicious. Then I knit three quarters of a carrot colored sock with the moral support of all of town hall when I turned the heel. After I worked on the sock, we all went to Alexandria to play a rousing game of Settlers Of Catan at Will’s house. It was my first time playing and the dynamic duo of Laura and Lea won!!!! James and Will were thoroughly “put out” at our win because they were self-proclaimed protegees. Well, maybe they did win, but I might not want to admit it. Currently, we are watching the Big Lebowski. Hopefully, Will does not fall asleep because apparently he has never made it through 1/10th of the whole movie. He is actually letting us watch the movie in his room. There is a rug here that really “ties the room together”. (quote from currently being watched movie).
Also, Leah taught us some Spanish in the Taco Bell drive through.
 Leah debe estudiar Español y no la biología. Toodaloo,
Laura
Not only did we finish phenology and get a great start on P2 today, I finished my independent project proposal! My research this summer is focused on how pollinator foraging behavior towards Echinacea changes over the course of the season as a result of community changes. I will look at what taxa are exhibiting flower constancy towards Echinacea by conducting observations and I will analyze their pollen loads under a microscope to determine what conspecific pollen bees are carrying to Echinacea and what ratio of their load is Echinacea pollen. My research will hopefully help the Echinacea Project better understand how pollinators could be contributing to Echinacea‘s pollen limitation and reproductive fitness.
Prescott Proposal 2016
This summer, I will be examining the effects of removing buckthorn, a shrub that is invasive to Minnesota, on the edges of a bog near the Hjelm House. I am interested in seeing how removing buckthorn impacts the native plants, native invertebrates, soil quality, and exotic earthworm population. To learn more about my project, feel free to read my proposal! I’ve already been working on my project quite a bit and I can’t wait to get the final data and results!
Alyson’s Awesome Proposal – Click here to read the most exciting proposal you’ve ever read, probably.
 Here’s a sneak peak of the bog that I will be studying this summer! Isn’t it pretty?!
Dear Flog,
Spotted this Andrena having a snack while doing phenology this morning Today was a good day, beginning with phenology in the morning. I went to the northwest remnant sites with Amy. Although the morning was mostly uneventful, we did encounter the sheriff of Grant County as we were pulling over to check on the plants at Northwest of Landfill. He asked if he could offer us any help, but when we told him that we were studying plants he said that we were on our own! Oh well. We finished up and returned to the Hjelm House for lunch.
At lunch, we spent a while talking about P2 and measuring in the experimental plots. There are 8 experimental plots, so this will be a big job for the rest of the summer. Fortunately, we’ve already measured P8 (plot 8) when we measured the q2 and q3 seedlings. The process for measuring adult plants is pretty similar to what we did earlier in the summer. We went out to p2 this afternoon and worked in pairs to measure the plants there. We work in teams as we go through the rows, position by position. We still have a ways to go, but we made a good dent today.
Since it was rainy earlier this week, those of us living at Town Hall will head out for a quick round of pollinator observations tomorrow morning. I’m heading to bed now so that I will be ready to go then!
Goodnight,
Leah
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