Well since I didn’t blog yesterday I will start off with that. We took plant sampling, as well as population data. While we were picking the area for all the different we found a few species that we weren’t to fond of seeing in the area. Like this raspberry as well as snake berries which are indicative of the soils drying up. What’s causing this drying up of these ponds? Well that’s the mission we are trying to accomplish. Is it the huge storm that disturbed thousands of acres of forested lands? Perhaps it’s the excessive clear cutting the Chippewa National Forest has started a couple years ago, which is disturbing a lot of our swamp areas. Another interesting find I stumbled across yesterday was this group of butterflies all laying dead in the same spot(pictured below). I found two small orange, two medium yellow, and one medium black butterfly. Weird that they all were dead in just that one area along side of the road where we come out of the forest. The day before they wernt present. Today I had a few extra minutes to myself so I took myself and my co-worker(my cousin, we drive in together) to the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway which is also located within the CNF about 15/20 miles away from the site we are working at. It was a very nice way to start out our morning appreciating the general beauty of this land we come from as well as the story that come with this beautiful orchid.