The work day started at 8am, with the team scattering to different remnants to capture pollinators in action. I was at East Elk Lake Road and decided the first plant I would visit might be the beast in the road. I assessed phenology on this plant yesterday, I believe it had 7 heads, was practically in the lane, and right before the bend in Elk Lake Road that leads to KJs. This plant has flowered many times in the course of the Echinacea project, including last year- it’s current tag number 20704. I guess I figured I’d start the morning of videos with a potentially challenging plant. But when I walked down the road with my bucket, little did I know it had been mowed since yesterday morning!
RIP to this year’s heads!
After a moment of silence for the mowed plant, literally cut down in the prime of its reproductive effort, I moved on to my first video.
“Quiet, roll ’em”
Some pollinators chose to relax on my pants, instead of nearby plants, even though I told them about the Echinacea only a meter away!
No pollen here!
Meanwhile, Amy worked on her compatibility experiment and Laura collected pollinators for her project. We headed home around 11:30 although work was far from over for the day. Amy headed back out in my car to continue her work at Staffanson. Scott, Lea, Laura, and Alex all stayed a little longer to work on their various projects, and the rest of us started to work on our proposals. Alex made a wonderful dinner of carrot-ginger soup and homemade bread after which we all split ways to keep working on our proposals. At dinner we decided that tomorrow we would do something fun in Alex and perhaps even make breakfast for dinner. Overall, we had a positive and productive day of pollinators and proposals! Stay tuned for those proposals which will be on the flog sometime next week.
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