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Hi! It's me again :) I am back from Saguaro National Park after 8 days learning all about the desert and surviving the heat. It is really really pretty there.. I can't emphasise that enough. It is so rich in vegetation and the diversity of plant and animal life is amazing. You can see why they decided to establish this as a national park in 1933!
My role on project for the majority of the time was to work with a very dilute Milestone herbicide and to spray the invasive exotic weed Malta Starthistle (Centaurea Melitensis for Tom's benefit lol). It is very easy to spot once you know what you are looking for (the smaller ones are sometimes more difficult to recognise). It has rounded lobes, elongated outer leaves and is fairly fuzzy in appearance. Ther herbicide was dyed blue! So you can imagine what the national park looks like now... sort of a blue spotted monster has been stomped into the ground lol. Malta Starthistle was introduced in California in the 1700's from the sourthern Europeans for medicinal purposes, we were told by staff from the National Park Service. It has been in southern Arizona since 1901. As it is an invasive species, the natives don't stand much of a chance. (Similar reason as to why we removed Tamarisk at Lake Mohave).
The work was fairly easy but the heat made it a lot harder. We carried a gallon of herbicide.. sometimes two gallons on our backs and had to walk extremely slowly through the desert scanning through and observing any trace of Malta that we could find. If you have seen Forrest Gump and remember the scene where they are all lined up in Vietnam walking slowly through the wilderness... well that was us... just with a herbcide sprayer instead lol. We worked on the side of washes and near the Visitor Centre and helibase.. so we were not in the same place all the time which was great :)
We had one day of revegetation where we planted 5 native species back into the soil by using picks and shovels to dig a hole, fill it with water... place the plant in... fill it with soil... add more water etc.... until it was planted. Then we had to place mulch around the plant to protect it and give it more of a chance for survival. We used bits of decayed prickly pear cactus... sticks etc and covered the soil. Then we used a barbed wire mesh to place around the plant for added protection to keep rodents and small mammals from attacking it. That made a nice change from spraying. We were meant to have 2 days of this but got all our work done in one day... son't underestimate the power of ACE lol.
I was in awe of the variety of vegetation at Saguaro National Park. Due to the elevational gradient there are different ecosystems within the park. There is that of the desert floor, with a much dryer and warmer climate, but there is also the Rincon Mountains which provide a cooler, wetter climate for different species such as the ponderous pine tree and bears haha. Truly fascinating. I have written so much in my journal that I haven't got much computer time left to write about it all today. But I do know that there are cholla, saguaro, prickly pear, barrell and pin-cushion cacti (I have been pricked by enough lol)... I do have some pictures to upload... there are some on facebook but will get to putting them on here sometime soon. I have loads that I havent put up yet lol.
I now have 6 days off to chill... might not go anywhere this time.. just relax and enjoy my time off. I want to get to Zion and Sedona at some point though :) Really enjoying myself and have met some truly fantastic people. Really nice area and I just love America - what can I say. Missing my friends and family loads and especially Michael (love you sweetheart <3)
I will try and write some more this week if anything happens lol.. Hope everyone is okay across the pond and the world! Lots of love from Ruthie :D xxxxxxx
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