Last week was my last field week collecting berries. I’ve mainly been writing my paper and making my poster, but I’ve been able to hang out with Tony’s cat and I saw some cute horses during a run.

Last week consisted of lots of fun activities. We went hiking, walked around a cherry festival, saw an amazing sunset, and swam in Flathead Lake. Plus, I collected my berries for my project.

I’ve been continuing my fieldwork throughout the week — collecting and weighing berries — along with our bee and flower fieldwork. I also tried rhubarb for the first time straight from Tony’s garden, which an…interesting flavor.

My team and I collected berries and caught bees like usual this week, but we also had the opportunity to attend a powwow. It was awesome to experience more of the culture in the area. Between running a stream table, buying jewelry, drinking huckleberry lemonade, and eating Indian tacos, we all had a great time. To go along with our eventful week, we also took some time to tan at Flathead Lake.

My first huckleberries ripened! We had a few days of collection this week. We also saw some bears at Glacier National Park. And as a team, we all decided to change our bitmojis to look like our study subject for this summer (bees).

This week was full of us running around with nets catching bees and measuring the huckleberries during field work. Identifying bees and flowers is way harder than I initially thought it would be. We also learned the hard way not to try to pick up a bee by the stinger.

This whole REU experience has been great so far! Glacier National Park was an amazing place to have our orientation. Since we’ve all split up into our teams, Team SPAW has travelled to Tony’s cabin in the mountains, explored the Salish Kootenai campus, and drove around the bison range (saw super cool animals!). Below is one of my favorite views from a hike at GNP to Avalanche Lake.