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At this point, I think we’ve all gotten into a good groove. Phenology on half of the sites went smoothly this morning. Ben and I worked at Landfill. I enjoyed watching the nearby herd of cows get chased out of a wetland by an angry man in an ATV while I methodically selected “Done Flowering” for a head with no more female or male florets. The sun was out but the grass was dewy. I worked on the East hill for the first time. By 11:20am, we headed back to the Hjelm house to work on phenology in p1. People trickled in from all the different routes, and by lunch all the phenology was complete. After a calm lunch, where I thought for the first time about brome-derived ethanol, the team split up to complete a few jobs. While Amy and Danny headed out to prepare for the next step in the Compatibility study, the rest of us worked in p1 or the Hjelm house itself on various tasks. I started painting bracts: Lavender along the western edge of each head’s center divide, Pink along the eastern edge, and white for pre-shriveled styles. It was the perfect afternoon for that kind of task. The sky was bright blue but punctuated with small white bursts of cloud. The air was warm and the sun turned my rubber boots into little foot ovens. But time felt purposeful and productive. When everyone had finished their jobs, we met back on the porch and debriefed the day. It was busy, fruitful, but most of all it felt comfortable and settled. We are hitting our stride as a team, working smoothly to divide tasks and communicating clearly. And I think I’ve found my new passion in field work.
 Pollinator Exclusion Bags On! Bracts Painted! Pollinator at work! Dinner Time!!
Today I swam in a lake for the first time, a lake that Katherine thought was called Elkbow Lake which caused her to wonder why there would be both an Elkbow Lake and an Elbow Lake. But in reality, I swam in Elk Lake. This was after a surprise pancake breakfast cooked by Danny. We had banana pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, plain pancakes, and banana-chocolate chip pancakes, all with REAL maple syrup. Breakfast happened around 10:30am. Lake swimming began around noon. All in all we spent a few hours in the sun. We laid out towels, tried to avoid the kids with water guns, and swam out to the little dock that had a diving board. The diving board warned us to “plan our dives” before attempting, and also mentioned that it had a weight capacity of 250 lbs. While the majority of the group continuously jumped, flipped, and dove off the dock, I tended to stay in the water. I enjoy treading water so I did that most of the time we were in the lake. Later in the afternoon we headed back to town hall to shower up and get ready for our trip to Alex. After showers, a little primping, and a set of “normal” clothes (no CBG shirt?) we headed off to two different destinations in Alex. One car headed to Taco John’s and the grocery store, one headed to RIBFEST! You can tell which car I was in. We met up with Will and ate some ribs, cheese curds, grilled corn, and kettle corn. As the clouds rolled in we decided to wrap up the night. While driving back to K-town the rain started, lightening and all. Now, I’m ending the night in town hall with some peppermint tea and a pleasantly full stomach. Good Saturday!
 Just SOME of our rib-remnants…we definitely ate more than this!  Ribfest entrance, notice the sign is in ALL CAPS
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