Day 17: To The Marsh... Again

We woke up pretty early today and had quite a bit of time in the morning before we had to go to work. Since we had time, we decided to go to the side of our house to pull out some invasive knapweed growing in a small patch of native plants. There were patches of them all spread out! We spent a good fifteen minutes in the area, yet we couldn't get all of it. But we vowed to go back and get rid of all of it before we leave next Friday. After our morning exercise, we picked up all of the weeds we pulled and threw it in the compost pile. Then Marissa dropped us off at work and enjoyed her day off.

After yesterday's mechanical work day, today we went out into the fields. Well, not quite. We met up with the local interns and Craig's crew again to work at the marsh at Lulu Lake. Today, our mission was plant inventory, marking all the species we found in the wetland. Craig told us that the data from the monitoring that we did two weeks ago showed that the herbicide his crew was using was 99% effective. However, the area did seem less diverse, and they aren't sure if it's the herbicide or just this year's weather. When we first went out into the field, Craig quizzed us on ecosystem services and we of course, knew the answer. If not, he was going to punish us! He also showed us how to use a GPS device to track where we found some rare species. Knowing the location of the species would help us know where to find a specific plant species in the marsh.

As we headed into the fields, we saw many of the species we saw last time including tussock sedge, bedstraw, some goldenrods, and more. There were also many species we had never seen before and that was a fun learning experience. Craig first taught us a little about leaf insertion or how leaves of a plant are arranged on the stem. There are three classifications: opposite, which is two leaves that are opposite of one another on one node; alternate, one leaf per node; and whorled, multiple leaves on a node. We discussed the key characteristics of a plant that makes it different from all the other plants. The first plant we saw and identified was Ohio goldenrod which is an alternately leaved plant. Next to it was a different type of goldenrod, but what makes it special and different than the Ohio goldenrod is its purple stem. In addition, the Ohio goldenrod has yellow flowers on top and big leaves. As we continued our plant identification, we saw some plants that we learned about last time, but the local interns have never been in the marsh before so we went over them again. It was a great way to refresh our memories.

In the next 2 pictures Craig is showing Joan and Ellen about the GPS tech

Sarah is showing us the list of species from last years inventory

Look at us learning!

Trying to use the field guides to ID a plant

 Catherine and Dave in the back

Lucinda and Spencer (who's making his creepy face for the camera again!)

Amanda is showing us Dogwood

Spencer found a tree frog

Ain't he cute?

Nice Lucinda.  Very friendly.

 

More plant ID work with the team

Ellen

We also found a walking stick insect

As we got further our into the marsh, there were many sinkholes. Emily was the first to fall in one, but by the end of our mission each and every one of the interns, both local and LEAF, fell in.

We kept track of who fell in and when, but Katherine fell in so many times that we lost count (she might have fallen ten times).

At one point, we got to see the broadleaf arrowhead - it is actually shaped like an arrowhead!

There were also shrubs and young trees that we identified including dogwood, aspen, and willow. Craig and Amanda told us that the shrubs need to be controlled with random fires so that they don't grow to be too big to shade out the shorter plants. We also learned that it's also really important to have grasses in the marsh so that the fires would be hot enough to burn the shrubs. After we did some more identification, we managed to walk out of the marsh with only a few victims of the sinkholes.

We had lunch at the Lakeview Cabin and had a great time with Sarah and the local interns.
Here's Sarah eating with her multi tool. It's actually a can opener, but not once has she used it to open a can.

 After a fun conversation, we went back out to the marsh to learn more from Craig. He showed us a few gadgets people use in the field such as a water testing device and a soil sifter. We used the water testing device to check the salinity, TDS (total dissolved solids), and acidity of the river. Craig was being silly and used it on Gatorade. The salinity of the Gatorade was two magnitudes above the salinity of the water!

He then took a sample of soil and left it on top of the sifter. The sifter is composed of four parts with different sized meshes. As the soil sat in the sifter, the larger particles will stay on top while the rest drains down into the lower levels. We learned a few basic facts about soil including classification of textures of soil, different particles in soil, soil horizons, and how soil is different in the marshes. Soil have many different textures and the texture of a soil is determined by the particles in it. It's a combination of sand, silt, and clay with clay being the smallest particles and sand being the largest. Since the soil in marshes have no oxygen, it's very different than soil you find above water. Craig told us that organic matter actually takes a very long time to decompose in wetland because the soil bacteria are performing anaerobically without oxygen. He said that he once found a part of a tree somewhere in the wetlands that was barely decomposed, but it was about 5,000 years old!

After some talking and learning, we went out to the part of the marsh that hasn't been treated yet. We saw many invasive narrow leaf cattail. As we walked into an older area of invaded land, we noticed a great decline in diversity. Since we didn't see any other species in the area, we headed back to the trucks to end our work in the marsh. Here's a video of Craig teaching us some more about these plants.

Today was our last day working with Craig and his crew so we said our goodbyes. We're really grateful that we got to meet them and learn so much from them.

After the crew left, we went down the road back to the cabin to pull out some sweet clover. There were just so many of them. We also saw a bunch of knapweed. After an hour or so, we filled up five bags and drove down to the weed pit to empty out those annoying weeds.


We then met Marissa at the gate of Lulu Lake and introduced Sassy Jr. to the local interns. They became friends very quickly. She is quite friendly you know.

We went home to do some laundry and to cook a yummy dinner of pulled pork sandwiches with fries and corn! None of us have used a slow cooker before so we are excited to see how the pork will taste. We are even more excited about making Chocolate Mousse for dessert!

 Rebecca doing laundry. 

Marissa used the knots she learned at the mentor training to hang our clothes lines.

 The girls outside the house, after shooting some video journals.

 Making chocolate mousse!

 Lucinda peeling potatoes.

 Rebecca working on the blog.

 Our yummy dinner- pulled pork sandwiches with fries!

 Finished product- chocolate mousse!  Another delicious meal!

We will be away the next 4 days visiting Baraboo, Madison and Milwaukee Wisconsin.  During most of this time we will be without internet (we are camping out tomorrow night in a state park and are going sailing on lake Michigan Sunday!).  We promise to update again as soon as we can.