Work Blog (sorry)

First I said I was going on a cyberdiet (didn't happen), and then I decided I wasn't going to blog about my animals for awhile (lasted a short awhile). I've also tried, as a New Year's resolution and during Lent, to refrain from talking about work after work hours. Occassionally you probably miss a workout, eat a piece of chocolate (or ten), or drink a glass of wine (or four)... we are all guilty of falling off the wagon. Tonight I missed the sunset (due to a work-related meeting) and so I'll have to post a work-related blog, despite the self-imposed afterhours moratorium. I'm pouring a glass of wine and scarfing a stale Dagoba lavendar-infused chocolate now while I blog about work. Don't worry, it will be an entertaining ode-to-work blog, not a bitch session.

{Yesterday at Work}
Yesterday my mentor, "Forester Joe", and I got to check off one of our natural resource management indicators in effort to improve wildlife habitat and recreation opportunities. We implemented prescribed burns with the TN Dept of Forestry guys on our resource management tracts on Norris Reservoir (Claiborne/Campbell Counties, TN, otherwise known as BFE). We burned three tracts, totaling 36 acres, to remove fescue (an exotic) and reset succession on dense stands of native warm season grasses, such as switchgrass (an ethanol source) and broomsedge (my favorite warm season grass). The native grasses are bunch grasses, they "bunch" or clump at the base. Between the clumps of native grasses are excellent quail covey (covey means breeding) habitat, as well as bunny and turkey rearing habitat. The natives are mid-height (to your belly button) or taller so they provide excellent protection from flying predators (like hawks and owls). My involvement is basically to make management decisions in effort to improve small game hunting. Yesterday I got to light the fires, use a drip torch, and pose as a recreation arsonist! Good stuff.

So, yup, I get paid to that stuff and with the little lesson above, I hope I am making my parents proud as evidence that I retained something from undergraduate fire ecology and wildlife biology classes. If you are still awake, I hope you enjoy these videos and the slideshow of images captured at "work" yesterday.

{Prescribed Fire Slideshow}


{Drip Torch Fire and Back Fire Video}


{Fire Devil} - Unique footage of a fire devil, a natural phenomenon occurring when two fires merge and the wind forms a convection tunnel (like a tornado).