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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, 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!
In 2014, members of Team Echinacea did an experiment to test methods of removing Hawkweed. Last year Ali assessed the results of the different methods that they used: cutting the head and painting the stem with herbicide, painting the leaves with herbicide, hand pulling with and without tools, and a control treatment. You can read her post describing the experiment and with the results from 2015 update here and the original post with methods here.
I went back to the treatment plots this morning and assessed Hawkweed percent cover two years after the treatment. The plots with the lowest percent cover this year were those where they removed hawkweed by hand, with tools. These plots also had the smallest percent change from 2015 to 2016, indicating lasting effects of removal. This was in contrast to those that had been treated by painting leaves with herbicide, where plots had an average of 4x increase in Hawkweed. From now on, we’ll use this method to remove Hawkweed in P1. We’ll assess percent cover in the treatment plots and the status of other Hawkweed plants in p1 to keep track of our progress at eradicating Hawkweed from the common garden.
Here’s the percent cover data from this year:
hawkweedData2016
The gang had a busy day today, almost all of it in the warm June sun. Alyson continued setting up her experimental plots in the Staffanson bog, and spent the afternoon measuring canopy cover and soil pH for her IS project. Meanwhile, the rest of the team (minus Gretel, who was setting up work for q2 juvenile counts) picked up our fleg begs and counted Hesperostipa spartea and weeded in p1. Amy and James found one H. spartea specimen with 137 seeds! We are now up to 17 out of 59 rows surveyed. Meanwhile, Will, Alex and Per led the crew in weeding out the non-native yellow sweet clover (Melilotus) from the periphery of the plot area. Hopefully we eliminated a lot of potential seeds form the seed bank, meaning that in future years the rows will be devoid of this weedy legume and the study Echinacea will have less competition. Stuart also showed me what poison ivy looks like for the third time, and I still don’t think I could pick it out of a lineup.
Per with a bundle of sweet clover picked from around p1. This is probably less than 10% of what was removed today. After some brief (or for Alex, who was cleaning the bathroom, not so brief) chores at the Hjelm House, the team returned to exPt8 (experimental plot 8) to search for juvenile Echinacea crosses planted in 2013. This meant more time bent over, although now instead of looking for seedlings we were looking for melted bits of toothpick (which were placed to mark seedlings). Some seedlings were in great shape — Alex and I found a couple with basal leaves over 10 cm tall. Others were not in great shape, either dead or missing like Jimmy Hoffa. We got about a third of the work for qGen2 this afternoon. It may rain tomorrow, so we’re bracing for indoors-work and hiding our bicycles inside.
 Using a pink sword to claim the new seedling (left) for Team Echinacea. We used cocktail swords to denote seedlings germinating this year from achenes sown in 2013.
As the day began, we had one mission: finish searching for q3 seedlings. With Per helping out, Alyson was free to go down to the bog and begin setting up her experimental plots for removal of buckthorn. The rest of us paired off and started the work of finishing q3. Amy and I worked together. The most surprising seedling we found was 29cm west of the line.
All working in on one row of q3 Lone seedling 29 cm from the main line! After lunch, we headed down to p1 to learn how to search for Hesperostipa. This was the first time Team Echinacea 2016 worked in p1. As I worked with James the first time, we struggled to find plants in our first row. Working our way back though, we found one plant with 78 fruits.
James counts the fruits! We all spent the end of the afternoon back at q3 finding the remaining seedlings. Working in teams of three and five we wondered if we were more efficient than working in just pairs. With an odd numbered team, one person can enter data and the rest can search for seedlings. We found 644 seedlings in 849 planted segments- the winter was hard on these q3 seedlings. But the data is exciting nonetheless!
We just finished q3! When we returned to Town Hall, Laura started making an amazing curry lentil dish while Leah, James, and I participated in Leah’s “leg day” workout routine and Amy picked up the CSA box from Morris. We now have a refrigerator full of lettuce, kohlrabi, scallions, radishes, and even two summer squash.
Opening the box
Look at all of our veggies!
Team Echinacea embarked on another exciting day of festivities at the Kensington Rune Stone Days. In particular, we enjoyed the Rune Stone Days parade, where we gorged ourselves on free candy and watched fantastic viking ships, ATV performances, and band stand floats go by. Some members of the town hall “Flower Children” also ventured out the previous night to dance at the street dance.
Besides dancing last night and the parade today, the “Flower Children” spent the day napping, reading, and working on their individual projects. It was a fine day for preparing for the next set of adventures this coming week!
The Kensington Lions Club Viking ship float.  Alex Hajek, asleep in his hammock in town hall
Today we returned to q3 and continued searching for Echinacea seedlings. The seedlings found in q3 from yesterday and today totaled to 432 individuals! We’ve searched 556 of the 849 meter sections. Woohoo! We probably have one more half-day of searching. This total is lower than last year which we hypothesized could be related to the rough winter.
Lea and Alex found a seedling. Woot! We only worked a half day today and headed home around noon. Kensington is getting ready for Rune Stone Days this weekend. We are looking forward to the pancake breakfast tomorrow!
Other notable events:
- Half of the lower jaw of a rodent was found in q3.
 Rodent remnants.
- A lively game of “Is that Thunder or a Big Truck?” was played.
- The paparazi spotted James riding riding back to town hall after work.
 James, the lean, mean bike-riding machine
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