[LTER-sbc_help] COVID-19 Community Messages Week 4

[Hubbard Brook Research Foundation]

 ‌ ‌ Familiar Faces Friday Enjoy these short virtual updates from Hubbard Brook. Amey at the "Hubbard Brook-esque" stream in her backyard Amey Bailey Field Technician, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest Hello from the Bailey home/officestead. I’m writing from the depths of the basement where I’ve had to sequester myself from distractions and temptations! I think of my Hubbard Brook family daily and hope everyone is doing well and tolerating this novel situation. Except for editing strip charts at the kitchen table during maternity leave, I’ve never worked from home during 28 years as a field technician at Hubbard Brook. The Hubbard Brook office and forest is a second home. I’ve always considered myself one of the lucky few who has a commute free of traffic and full of splendid scenery and on occasion rainbows and wildlife crossings! When at work, I have two offices. One is spacious and full of old filing cabinets and papers reminding me of the people who came before me. It’s a privilege to sit at the desk Wayne Martin used and Bob Pierce before him. And the graphs posted on the walls with neat regressions and detailed labels are reminders of the wonderful Don Buso years. My other office is the greater Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. My quality of life has truly been enhanced through the gift of work at Hubbard Brook. While at home I’ve made daily visits to our own backyard Hubbard Brook-esque stream and casually monitored its activity. It was really bulging last Monday. Thanks to years of work on the part of so many people, I’m able to sit in my basement and determine that at rain gage 1 on April 13, 2.51” of rain fell! Sadly in some ways, I don’t need to be in my grand office or out at the rain gage to calculate daily total rainfall. That’s being done on the fly now! That’s a lot of rain for one day, and Scott calculated (again from the confines of the house) that the peak flow at Watershed 3 from that rain event was the 11th highest on record at Weir 3. In some ways the stay at home order has come at a good time for us Hubbard Brookers. The realtime sensor data network is reliable, getting easier to troubleshoot and serving us in our homes. The forest and weather we monitor is going to continue to do its thing whether we’re at home or not, and we’re capturing these natural events. I’ve heard it said staying at home is a privilege. I’m full of gratitude for all that I have at home and at work and remember daily that others are not as fortunate. Maybe I’m experiencing some of that serendipity Herb Bormann used to talk about. —Amey The Salamander Team Maddy Cochrane with a freshly baked loaf of quarantine bread Leah Swartz at the Grand Canyon in March Winsor Lowe and family in Patagonia Brett Addis practicing social distancing Winsor Lowe Professor of Biology, University of Montana Hi everyone! I am writing from Missoula, Montana, and on behalf of the salamander team: Leah Swartz, Maddy Cochrane, and Brett Addis. Like everyone, we are making the best of social distancing by working on manuscripts and proposals, checking and re-checking data, and planning for the coming field season (with fingers crossed). Thankfully, Missoula has a lot of open space that is still open to the public, so we are all jumping at chances to stretch our legs and walk our dogs on Mount Jumbo—really a hill, or what we call a “New England Mountain” (sick burn). I was on Jumbo this morning in a foot of new snow—a slog, but the snow was a great backdrop for the shockingly-blue bluebirds that have shown up in the last few weeks. Last week it was 67°F and a new wildflower was appearing every day. They are still there, but we’ll need a day or two of warmth to get rid of the snow blanket. My family and I planned to be on sabbatical in Chile for the Spring semester. We came back in late March, two months early, when the State Department said that Americans abroad should either come back or plan to be away for an “indefinite period." It feels better to be home, but we all miss Chile. We packed a lot into our two months there, including backpacking in Torres del Paine and Fitz Roy, eating piñones (seeds from the crazy Araucaria trees), and walking through penguins on an island near Punta Arenas (miraculously, after all recovering from a stomach flu the day before). With all that has happened since then, those experiences feel a million miles away, but maybe even sweeter for that. Leah Swartz was on the Grand Canyon for most of the month of March, so she has experienced an especially extreme transition back to daily life. Maddy is putting the final touches on her dissertation proposal, and Brett is genotyping another batch of Hubbard Brook salamanders. We all send our best wishes to all of you, and hope that you are staying healthy and finding (or making) bright spots. Like you all, I am feeling very grateful for my communities, and no professional community means more to me than Hubbard Brook. —Winsor The Hubbard Brook Research Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to supporting the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study. Hubbard Brook Research Foundation | 30 Pleasant St., Woodstock, VT 05091 Unsubscribe sbc_help at lternet.edu Update Profile | About Constant Contact Sent by sciencelinks at hubbardbrookfoundation.org in collaboration with Try email marketing for free today!
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