Hi All!
Life is a little crazy right now, my to do list is long (finishing up my theses, applying for NSERC, preparing to move), so I am going to keep this short. The last time I posted, it was summer and I was longing to leave my desk and go out to my field site. Finally, this past weekend I got to go out to my site and settle my curiosity about how my transplanted seedlings survived their second growing season.
This trip out was bittersweet: sweet because I got to go spend a beautiful afternoon with friends working in a place that has become so important to me, bitter because I don’t know when I will be back. While often times this summer I felt like my progress wasn’t proceeding at the pass I had wanted, I have reached the final stretch, just a couple more rounds of revisions before my dissertation is sent out for review. This past trip to the field was less out of necessity (my thesis is pretty well completed, no more data needed!) and more driven by desire. When I told a friend, who had assisted me with my field work the past two summers, he smiled and replied, “You just can’t stay away can you?” He knows the amount of time and work that has been put into studying the plant community of that area, and then confessed that he still visits his Masters’ field sites. I couldn’t have gotten a nicer day to go out for the last day of field work on this project, there was not a cloud in the sky, the day was warm, and I was accompanied by three of my closest friends. I collected data loggers that have been continuously monitoring the environmental conditions for the past two years (the necessity of the trip), and surveyed my transplanted seedlings one more time (the nonessential part of the trip). As per usual, those seedlings have surprised me again! Despite what the literature describes at other alpine treelines, a lot of growth had occurred over this summer and all the seedlings looked very healthy.
At the end of the day, we sat at the top of my site overlooking the southwest arm of Green Bay, I was surprised by a bottle of champagne, and we celebrated my last field day of my Master’s. We chatted about what I have learned about the drivers of the plant community and discussed future research projects that would address questions remaining. It’s kind of a funny feeling, I started out with only a few ecological questions that I wanted to address through my research and two years later I am leaving with more questions than I started with. But I take that as evidence that I have been in the right place, doing the right thing over the past few years.
Cheers,
Anna