Caroline Puckett here, third summer with Starker Forest! I’m back because once again we’ve had such a cool week and I’d hate for no one to share it with y’all.
Monday-
We started the week with Jake and I heading back out to do some more stream surveys. We have a whole list of units that need stream surveys so we have a lot to get done.
Caroline Puckett
We unfortunately made a few mistakes last Friday and had to go back and fix them. Once again, it is so important that we get accurate and understandable information when we go out. Our work is useless if it doesn’t make any sense to whoever is looking at it later. We got those units fixed fairly quickly and then had time to start and finish three more.
At the end of the day, we got to mark off six units as finished! We also got to see some elk at one of the units, so that was really cool.
Stream surveys typically mean hikes downhill and through ferns.
Tuesday-
Today was once again a learning day. We got the opportunity to go back to a unit we had previously worked on and got to check cruise it. This is one of the things I love about Starker, they don’t just do this whole intern thing halfway. They take the time to ensure that we walk away at the end of the summer feeling like we truly learned something.
We spent the morning with Lys going over plots and getting to see it from her perspective. Let me just say that the foresters aren’t lying when they say it can be hard to find the flagging of a plot someone else did. It was nice being able to compare how you see a plot versus someone else. You really must put yourself in their head and try to understand why they did what they did.
Wednesday-
A brand-new day and a brand-new experience! Today I got to go with foresters Stephen, Travis, Randy, and Patrick on a VMRC (Vegetation Management Research Cooperative) tour. Starker is big on research and works with multiple people through OSU.
Today we went with researcher Carlos Garcia who does a lot of research with OSU. I had heard his name a lot and had seen some of his testing sights on Starker, but I hadn’t met him until today. It was cool to see all the other companies that had a part of this research.
One of the stops was at a Weyerhaeuser nursery where we got to watch a tree planting machine insert plugs into the ground.
Weyerhaeuser seedling planting machine.
There were 55 different seed families, spread out over multiple companies. Starker even provided the buffer on the first stand we went to!
It was so interesting to see how the trees reacted to different changes they had to overcome. Some of the results were definitely surprising
Ran into Jamie Gassner, friend and former Starker intern, on the tour.
Thursday-
Once again, we did something a little bit new for this year. We went out and got to cruise some bigger timber. There were only four of us today so we got to split into two even groups, one went with Lys, and the other went with Reece. I jumped at the opportunity to watch Lys do some solo plots so I grabbed Eliana and we went with Lys for the day. I’ve done some bigger stuff in past years but I still don’t feel super confident with cruising, so I love getting more practice. According to Lys, it takes three solid years to become a good cruiser. That means only cruising for those years and doing them all year round. I got the opportunity to be plot center today, which left Eliana getting heights. Our goal for today was to get more plots done in a day then we had been getting done in previous stands
Friday-
Last day of the week! Today we went back out to the same stand and finished our cruising there. While Lilli and Will went up to finish the rest of the plots we had left in the biggest section of the unit, Eliana, Jake, and I went to start and finish the two youngest stands in the unit. It took us some time to fully figure out which BAF we wanted to use and also to adjust to getting heights in the older stuff. Unlike the younger stuff we’ve been doing all summer, this unit has had more time for the ground cover to grow back, so we had to navigate ferns, maples and a bunch of other shrubs that just make getting heights a little bit harder. We then had to go back and fix a few of our plots from yesterday. As I feel like I keep saying, it is so important that we get correct information when we go out into the field. One of the most crucial parts is missing trees. One missed tree and that’s a failed plot automatically. Being able to go back and see those plots and find the mistakes really reminds you how important it is to stay focused when you are at plot.
This fly decided I was to be its friend for the day.
This was a really good week and a week full of learning. I’ve got one more month at Starker and I do not want to waste any second of it!
— Caroline Puckett