Okay, so let me set the stage. I haven't done fieldwork an entire year due to my secondment to southwestern Ontario in 2015 and it's now June 2016 and I've been tasked with approximately half of the stewardship for the summer, particularly dealing with invasive species removal as my stewardship lead is pregnant and unable to work with herbicides. I'm not thrilled about spending my summer with toxic chemicals, but as always excited for the chance to make my little corners of nature that I manage a happier place for native species. But I am rusty. And I forgot how easy it is for even the best laid plans to go awry when you're in the field.
Our first day involves a very simple visit to a 2 acre property in Georgian Bay. The inspection of the site takes approximately one hour and then I plan to visit with the landowners for about one hour, as they have invited us over for lunch, and then we'll be on our way to our second field site of the day where we will treat a small population of Garlic Mustard and a small population of Giant Hogweed. This schedule means we'll get to go home early, probably, on Thursday night – awesome! Instead, we end up at the donors house for hours and hours as they are clearly enjoying our company and lunch is taking a while to serve. We are having a great time, but before I know it it is almost 3 o'clock and we are still in Parry Sound, nowhere near the second field site. After extricating ourselves and making it over to the property, I navigate us in the wrong direction a number of times before getting us to where we need to be. Then my intern Katie and I split up and she goes to treat the hogweed while I go to town on the garlic. Unfortunately the garlic mustard is completely out of control and I end up spending three hours in a hunched over position ripping out as many plants as I can until Katie rejoins me, we assess the situation, and realize this is way too much work for one day and we are both dead tired, starving, and need to return to our cottage! Our next move was to miss our exit off the 400 to get back to our cottage and overshooting south for many kilometers. After exhaustedly grocery shopping, settling into the cottage and prepping for the next day, it was a seriously long Monday. Not the best note to start things off on, but we are determined that Tuesday is going to be a better and more organized day, controlling a few tiny populations of dog strangling vine spread out across the Carden Alvar. Does that sound ominous? It should.
The next day in Carden we visit the first small population of dog strangling vine and kill it with success in less than an hour.The second population goes fairly well, but we run out of herbicide and have to work some magic to stretch out a few drops over at least 100 plants, a feat that we have become pretty good at, always being so far away from the car and a refill! We are walking to the third small population when we come across a lone dog strangling vine plant in the middle of a forest. This is never a good sign, because every dog strangling vine plant comes from another dog strangling vine plant. And then we happened upon a very significant patch growing in a very important part of the property, unbeknownst to us until that point in time. But seasoned field biologists - we just start spraying and I tell Katie to see if there is any more around. A silence ensues and then I hear Katie's small voice float across the alvar, and knowing how unflappable she is, when I heard "Kristyn? This is really bad…" I knew we were in a special kind of trouble. There it was, a massive monoculture of dog strangling vine essentially strangling a part of a forest. So, again, we just started spraying.We took turns walking back to the van which was approximately a 10 to 15 minute walk away through thick forest or juniper shrubs [it is much easier to walk through Cedar Forest then Juniper shrubland] and just as we were a few litres away from finishing our work for the day I volunteered to run back to the van to get the last of the spray. I took a wrong turn along the way because I was rushing and ended up in the dreaded junipers. If you're not familiar with this plant, it is extremely pokey. My field pants have been well used over the past four seasons, and the thin material started to rip as it strained against my sweaty legs and was picked up by the sharp fingers of the never ending field of junipers. I noticed, when I finally stumbled back out onto the road that runs through the property, that the bottom of my pocket and a large section of my pants have been fully ripped apart. Frustrated, I climbed into the van and moved it out onto the public road that was marginally closer to the giant monoculture. From there I loaded up with one last jug of herbicide, slipped a few important items from my backpack into my pockets, like my beloved peezee- a device that lets me use nature's facilities without ever having to crouch – I'm kind of like a dude out there and I kind of love it – as well as the van keys. I walked straight up an escarpment and started banging through more Cedar forest using our GPS to navigate me back to where Katie was. As I lifted my leg to step over a fallen log I heard the sound of my wonderful peezee slipping out of the bottom of my pocket, which I had completely forgotten was ripped. I saved the peezee and then my heart stopped because I realized I wasn't sure what pocket I had slipped the van keys into. You can guess where this is going. The van keys ... were nowhere to be seen. I called Katie in a panic (luckily my cell phone was in a different pocket) and told her I was delayed because I would have to retrace my steps to try to find the van keys. Well, no van keys were to be found, particularly since I had no idea which way I had walked into the site where I was. I ran around that forest in circles while I desperately called Enterprise, CAA, and Katie, in near tears. The van is a rental and we had rented it from a place 2 1/2 hours away from where we currently were.
Well let me just say that was a very, very large vehicle that CAA sent to help us out. It was an agonizing hour while we watched the guy load our van with chains onto the bed of the truck.
In my happiest moment of the day I got a hold of the folks at Guelph Enterprise who told me they did have an extra set of keys for that van and would send them to the Orillia enterprise nearby. Riding home in the back of the tow truck I looked down at my stupid pants and noticed that I was inexplicably covered in herbicide, just as one final insult on a very terrible day.
Needless to say after my trip to Value Village to purchase new field pants that night, I stress ate a lot of McDonald's followed by several ice cream sandwiches. Lucky for us the next day was a return to Georgian Bay, followed by two more days of spraying dog strangling vine including a half day on Friday (when I had hoped we would be snugly home for the weekend!) to finish off the new monoculture. Well, friends, you'll never guess what Katie spotted as we were walking away from the site that day through the forest. The van keys. The fact that we managed to bushwhack the exact same path was unbelievable, even today.
It was one of those weeks where we kept saying "we will laugh about this later". That was June. It is several months later. I am still not REALLY laughing, but more shaking my head in disbelief. I always want to be a more conscientious fieldworker, but it is so hectic out there, but I always seem to revert to some sort of cartoon or sitcom character, no matter how hard I try. Lucky for me Katie is my perfect foil in that she is never flustered, and always calm. But that Friday, heading home, the car was very quiet!
The next day in Carden we visit the first small population of dog strangling vine and kill it with success in less than an hour.The second population goes fairly well, but we run out of herbicide and have to work some magic to stretch out a few drops over at least 100 plants, a feat that we have become pretty good at, always being so far away from the car and a refill! We are walking to the third small population when we come across a lone dog strangling vine plant in the middle of a forest. This is never a good sign, because every dog strangling vine plant comes from another dog strangling vine plant. And then we happened upon a very significant patch growing in a very important part of the property, unbeknownst to us until that point in time. But seasoned field biologists - we just start spraying and I tell Katie to see if there is any more around. A silence ensues and then I hear Katie's small voice float across the alvar, and knowing how unflappable she is, when I heard "Kristyn? This is really bad…" I knew we were in a special kind of trouble. There it was, a massive monoculture of dog strangling vine essentially strangling a part of a forest. So, again, we just started spraying.We took turns walking back to the van which was approximately a 10 to 15 minute walk away through thick forest or juniper shrubs [it is much easier to walk through Cedar Forest then Juniper shrubland] and just as we were a few litres away from finishing our work for the day I volunteered to run back to the van to get the last of the spray. I took a wrong turn along the way because I was rushing and ended up in the dreaded junipers. If you're not familiar with this plant, it is extremely pokey. My field pants have been well used over the past four seasons, and the thin material started to rip as it strained against my sweaty legs and was picked up by the sharp fingers of the never ending field of junipers. I noticed, when I finally stumbled back out onto the road that runs through the property, that the bottom of my pocket and a large section of my pants have been fully ripped apart. Frustrated, I climbed into the van and moved it out onto the public road that was marginally closer to the giant monoculture. From there I loaded up with one last jug of herbicide, slipped a few important items from my backpack into my pockets, like my beloved peezee- a device that lets me use nature's facilities without ever having to crouch – I'm kind of like a dude out there and I kind of love it – as well as the van keys. I walked straight up an escarpment and started banging through more Cedar forest using our GPS to navigate me back to where Katie was. As I lifted my leg to step over a fallen log I heard the sound of my wonderful peezee slipping out of the bottom of my pocket, which I had completely forgotten was ripped. I saved the peezee and then my heart stopped because I realized I wasn't sure what pocket I had slipped the van keys into. You can guess where this is going. The van keys ... were nowhere to be seen. I called Katie in a panic (luckily my cell phone was in a different pocket) and told her I was delayed because I would have to retrace my steps to try to find the van keys. Well, no van keys were to be found, particularly since I had no idea which way I had walked into the site where I was. I ran around that forest in circles while I desperately called Enterprise, CAA, and Katie, in near tears. The van is a rental and we had rented it from a place 2 1/2 hours away from where we currently were.
Well let me just say that was a very, very large vehicle that CAA sent to help us out. It was an agonizing hour while we watched the guy load our van with chains onto the bed of the truck.
 |
| Serious towing capacity... |
In my happiest moment of the day I got a hold of the folks at Guelph Enterprise who told me they did have an extra set of keys for that van and would send them to the Orillia enterprise nearby. Riding home in the back of the tow truck I looked down at my stupid pants and noticed that I was inexplicably covered in herbicide, just as one final insult on a very terrible day.
 |
| Ahh, poison... |
Needless to say after my trip to Value Village to purchase new field pants that night, I stress ate a lot of McDonald's followed by several ice cream sandwiches. Lucky for us the next day was a return to Georgian Bay, followed by two more days of spraying dog strangling vine including a half day on Friday (when I had hoped we would be snugly home for the weekend!) to finish off the new monoculture. Well, friends, you'll never guess what Katie spotted as we were walking away from the site that day through the forest. The van keys. The fact that we managed to bushwhack the exact same path was unbelievable, even today.
 |
| Bonus: DSV found wilting at site on Friday. It was all worth it.... (?) |
It was one of those weeks where we kept saying "we will laugh about this later". That was June. It is several months later. I am still not REALLY laughing, but more shaking my head in disbelief. I always want to be a more conscientious fieldworker, but it is so hectic out there, but I always seem to revert to some sort of cartoon or sitcom character, no matter how hard I try. Lucky for me Katie is my perfect foil in that she is never flustered, and always calm. But that Friday, heading home, the car was very quiet!
Other notable moments from the field season included the time where Katie, Mike, and I were all spraying different sides of a humongous population of dog strangling vine, and I was getting pretty burned out from spraying, so I started listening to Kings of Leon on my phone in my pocket. But not with earbuds in, with music, playing loudly, drowning out the singing that I was doing as I sprayed. It was making the work super enjoyable and I felt like I was performing a mini rock concert, all on my own. I figured those guys might be able to hear the music but likely not my singing. Well, I guess I was pretty into my work and pretty into my personal rock concert because what I met back up with Katie she couldn't stop laughing and imitating what she called my shower singing, belting out (off key) the words to Kings of Leon songs, while my voice traveled clearly across the Alvar. She said it was likely as entertaining for her as it was for me.
There was the week that everything broke including both the front end, the middle section, and the back end of a garden hose at the cottage we were staying which is crucial to mixing herbicides – you've got to have water that reaches the van! What the hell was wrong with that hose?
There was the lady who lived across the street who came over and accused us of building bombs in the driveway because we were wearing protective equipment on our hands and faces while we mixed herbicides.
Contracting severe tennis elbow at the end of the season is not one that I'm laughing about yet, but cutting phragmites seedheads and stalks in a frenzy for three days straight was certainly a memorable way to spend a 40°C heat wave. I think I am still getting over that one emotionally.
Stay tuned for my next post: The End of Fieldwork? Coming soon...
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