Almost done in North Dakota!

This week is my last week in North Dakota working with The Nature Conservancy at the Brown Ranch. The only task I have left is to collect biomass samples from each pasture and put them in the freezer. Biomass sampling involves clipping all the plant material out of a certain area, it's simple and usually pretty quick. I did this a couple falls ago for the Saskatchewan project, too. I'm hoping to get those done on Wednesday and Thursday, (Friday if need be) and then head up to Winnipeg for a few days to see friends and collect some stuff I left there last year!

Over last week I was home for a very nice, relaxing time with family. I had fun picking up my niece, Addi, from daycare on Wednesday morning, she almost knocked a couple of her classmates over trying to get to the front of the room! And Eli is getting so much bigger, he likes to point at light switches and then switch them on and off to see what they do--Addi actually liked to do the same thing at that age! Mom took Addi swimming one afternoon as well, and I jumped in for a few minutes (the water was cold!), Addi really likes to swim! Also got to see Gramma, Aunt Nancy, and Uncle Roger for dinner on Friday, and then had the siblings over for dinner on Monday. It was a very nice trip home!

In North Dakota I've been helping a little bit with the LEAF students, who are from Atlanta, Georgia. They are part of an environmentally focused high school, and The Nature Conservancy hosts a bunch of different "LEAF" groups for about a month each year, to give them experience working in the conservation field. The girls have been pretty fun to work with, they don't mind getting their hands dirty and are eager to learn. But they sure are a handful on Sundays when they're well-rested and roudy!

I'm looking forward to my last few days in North Dakota. The prairie plants are really coming into full force right now, and I'm glad that I have a reason to go back out into each of the pastures to see what's blooming. But I'm also looking forward to moving to Lincoln, NE and starting to decorate my new apartment! It will be nice (for the first time) to have a place to myself where I can decorate how I want and follow my own rules!