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As the summer comes to an end it is time for the paper (birch) awards! This year we had the interns present the crew leaders with their awards and the grad students presented the interns with theirs. It was a ceremony filled with positive energy and emotions. It brought us all together one last time before we went our separate ways. Here are the awards that were presented:
THE GRAD STUDENTS
No Closed Doors Award
This is Alex Young! He is very friendly and social!SO social in fact that he likes to keep all the doors (and cupboards!) open to ensure all are welcome and do not feel left out…or he is just forgetful. We may never know the true reasoning behind it but nonetheless this quality made him the candidate for the No Closed Doors award.
#1 Daddy and Sleeping Beauty Award
This is Dan Hong! As you can see he was presented with two awards. This is because he was THE crew leader and always made sure all tasks were completed. Some would even say he took a father-like role this summer. This is why he is the #1 daddy. However, if you ever needed Dan your best bet was to check the couches. The hardest part of that was which couch would Dan be found on! Dan’s needy sleep schedule granted him the Sleeping Beauty Award!
Smokey’s Greatest Nemesis Award
This is Gretchen Lasser! She likes fireworks…and when I say “like” I actually mean LOVES! However, when you are a forest ecologist, fire is not good. This did not deter Gretchen though! She found a nice spot by the river, outside of the National Forest to display her passion in the sky. Her fondness for these sparkly, shiny, fiery sticks makes Gretchen Smokey’s Greatest Nemesis.
The Longest Fuse Award
Now don’t get this award confused with Gretchen’s because they both have to do with fire! This is Alex Rice. She took on the daunting task of studying sap flow this summer. With all the construction and wiring of parts, something was bound to go wrong. And they did…over …and over…and over again. However, this did not dampen Alex’s persistence to get useable data this summer. For this persistence, she was presented the Longest Fuse Award.
Titration King
This is Paul Ojo! He was a very determined member of our crew. Paul worked night and day on his titrations all summer long. Paul never let a mistake, or unexplainable hiccup get in his way of finishing his titration. His persistence, determination and positive outlook granted him the Titration King Award.
The Interns
The Master Gatherer
This is Claudia Victoroff! Her summer research involved collecting mushrooms that popped up in our plots and identifying them. This was not the only reason why she was granted this award however. Claudia is a very outgoing person and brought the crew together. Some would say she’s a real fun-gal She even gathered up members of the other research institutions present in the area. For this Claudia was awarded the Master Gatherer award.
The Bushwacker Award
This is Grace Haynes! Being super self driven on the GIS stem mapping project and taking on such a difficult task and finding her way through the rough granted Grace this award. She is the most likely to find her way home and proved clarity during times of confusion and haze which is what a bushwacker does when they clear the path for others.
Terra Firma Award
This is Griffin Walsh! He was an asset to this year’s crew because of how stable he was. His dependability, determination, and knowledge granted him the Terra Firma Award. Terra=ground and Firma= firm which is why this award was right for Griffin. Like the ground, he has layers, however, many only see the surface but those that take the time to look appreciate all the talents (layers) that Griffin possesses.
The Kestrel Award
This is Maddy Morely! She is fierce, stealthy, small, and mighty…just like a Kestrel! She is very reliable when it comes to work and friendship! She has an internal compass of a goddess that allows her to navigate the field, and life with ease. She occasionally eats small mammals.. For these qualities and for her love of birds, Maddy was presented the Kestrel Award.
The Cheese Baller
This is Milda Kristupaitis! She was the uplifting spirit of the crew. Wherever she was people were laughing, not at her but with her. She brought people together with her humor and lightened stressful situations. She coined catch phrases like deer tears, who pecked that, and cheese(balls) and wine. For her love of cheeseballs and her outgoing personality she was presented the Cheese Baller Award.
The Angel Award
This is Trey Turnblacer! He is most likely to be confused with and to outwork an lumberjack in the woods due to his steady determination to help others with field work. However, not a day in the field went by that Trey did not wipe out on a log or just over air it seemed. Some would say that he fell from heaven because he keeps falling here on earth and for that he was granted the Angel Award.
There were several crew members that left early, Shiyi Li, Shan Shan, Catilyn Buccheim, and Syd Wesney so we were unable to present them with awards, however each of them brought a new perspective and atmosphere to the group that was greatly missed.
-Alex R
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Coming into the summer, I was assigned the task of rating the severity of Beech Bark Disease in all of the MELNHE stands. Beech Bark Disease is characterized by scale insects and followed by a fungal agent that eventually weakens the tree. Since I had no experience with the disease before, Dan and I were paired up for the project.
Cankers from Fungus
We used a rating system developed by some of the leading professionals on the disease. Each one of the trees we rated was categorized into a three-part system. The trees were rated based on scale infestation, fungal infection, and canopy health. At the end of the project, Dan and I had rated over 1000 mature beech trees. We were also able to rate over 1000 beech saplings within all of our stands
Scale Insect Colonies
The coolest part of the project was that I was able to have results by the time of the Annual Hubbard Brook meeting. After looking through my data, I noticed that I had significant results in terms of stand age. There was also some significance between our treatment plots, which is a big deal for the MELNHE project. At the conference, I was able to give a five-minute presentation to a room filled with over 100 scientists to explain my project and show my findings.
Being a shoe stringer was one of the most valuable experience that I have ever encountered. It exposed me to a variety of different projects and helped me with improving my understanding of forest ecology. Bartlett New Hampshire is totally awesome!
Trey.
Filed under: Cooking in the white house, Daily life, Forest Health, Graduate Projects, Uncategorized
Grad student Gretchen here! This was my first summer up here in Bartlett, although I did come up last year in July to attend the Hubbard Brook Cooperators meeting. It was cool being back at that meeting this year but being one of the people giving a talk instead of just listening!
We are staying in “the white house” which is US Forest Service housing that is located 5-15 minutes from 9 of the experimental forest stands that we do work in. The property itself is comprised of 2 separate buildings that act to house cool researchers like ourselves, as well as a building that contains lab space, a conference room, and a supplies garage. We’re not the only folks on the property, there are also forest service and university-affiliated field workers, like the small mammals crew that tracks voles and catches field mice and moles – – they let me hold a dead star-nosed mole!! Ok, that may have been more exciting for me than it sounds to you.
The project that I’m wrapping up is photographing trees to quantify beech bark disease. BBD has been around for 100 years and we still don’t know everything about it which is scary because the mature forest up here is mostly beech and sugar maple – – imagine a bunch of diseased trees falling down. Eek. Anyway, I’ve been painting trees with 10x5cm “L”s so that I can use an imaging program to quantify insects and fungus on the bark and see if and how the nutrient manipulation that is the MELNHE project has any effect. It takes me the better part of a day to complete 20-25 trees, so this effort took a week. Each day I generate 750-1000 photographs so I’ll have a lot of work still to do when classes start up again.
Field work is a bit more laborious than the work I’m used to doing during the school year so I’ve made sure to play just as hard as I’ve been working! I love fishing up here in NH and there are a few great ponds within 45 minutes of us. My all-time favorite fishing was down on Squam Lake, which is by Lake Winnipesaukee but with much less traffic. I have a little rubber rowboat raft that suits 2 people and since I brought 3 rods up I’ve been able to take some of my compadres out with me! While fishing isn’t new to me I made it my mission to work on cleaning and cooking my catches this summer and I had great success! I’ve been intimidated by the idea of filleting but practice has made perfect and everyone here (well, not the vegetarians) has enjoyed tasting my efforts. After filleting I let the fish sit in brine water for 1-2 days (bass can be one of the fishier tasting fish) and then I coated them with bread crumbs and baked them, if you’re wondering.
Summer on a Shoestring 