Field Season Looming

It's going to be summer next week and then it's going to be crazy, hectic busy, and then it's going to be over the week after that. At least, that's how it feels. I'm planning my field projects and I'm already trying not to think long term planning because I'm going to be gone almost every single week, starting the last week of May. It's not going to be the kind of field season where I go far, far away, drop off the planet, and stay there for 5 months before returning to the real world (which morphs into the unknown in my absence). No, this is the kind of field season where you spend one week at site A doing a project involving one taxa, the next week at site B involving and entirely different taxa, off to site C immediately thereafter to deal with yet another taxa, and so on. And yikes - how many people do I have to coordinate with and arrange equipment for? It's going to be an adventure, as is always the case when your transportation methods include (but are not limited to): snowmachine, hiking, helicopter, and raft. Right.

I expect I will come out the other end with crazy stories and beautiful pictures and absolutely ready to hole up for the winter doing mellow things. Right now we are all scrambling - we've got 13 million acres of land to traverse and take care of (that's six times the size of Yellowstone National Park) and 3-4 months to do it in. So right now, I'm logistics girl - 'cause I need to line it all up so that then I can just let it flow.