The War on Invasives

I started this blog last year and never got it finished. Then two weeks ago,  two summer techs and I went to a two day workshop on identifying and managing invasives.  The main thrust was learning when and with what to spray invasive plants. I learned a lot, even though I've been working on managing invasive plants for many years in different parts of the country. The class was in the town of Whitehall, Montana which was a cute little town with a beautiful mountain backdrop

One of views on my walk to breakfast

Out classroom had about eighty students

I was excited to get a prize for answering a review question and even more excited to pass the two tests, even though I hadn't even looked at one of the study books.  I may now be able to take better selfies, with and extra forty-two inches of reach.

My selfie stick and test report

Why, you ask are invasives such a big deal?  Can't these aliens just live among the natives?  No, the local food chains require native plants for the native bugs for the native birds.  But the invasive plants replace native plants, sometimes forming huge monocultures that are like deserts to the native animals. They don't have insect pests that would help keep them in balance. Some of them are poisonous to birds or mammals, including livestock.

In Montana, invasive plants are assigned to one of four classes. Priority 1A weeds are not yet present in Montana, but people are watching for them to arrive.  Priority 1B weeds are only found in a few spots and are to be eradicated where they are found and people  educated to watch for them elsewhere.  Priority 2A weeds are common in parts of Montana and 2B weeds are abundant across Montana. It is the law that you may not allow any of these weeds to go to seed on your property.  Every  private or government entity has a weed management program in place and has spray crews. We have several entities in the valley that have spray crews. Several times during the summer, we will all come together to fight one particular weed at one location.


 Last year, one of our valley wide weed battles started at Red Rock Pass and came down into the refuge. Some of the crew sprayed but the people I was with pulled hoary alyssum by hand, filling a pickup truck full of black garbage bags.

Our target - hoary alyssum

The early arrivals catching up with each other

We wander through the grass in a semi organized fashion, looking for the distinctive plants

I, of course, was easily distracted and stopped for butterfly pictures

And flower pictures

This guy looks like he is really enjoying his job

This is my boss, Bill West, and Jessica Zapata, the leader of the Fish and Wildlife Strike Team.  She visits all the national wildlife refuges in Montana with several workers.  They spray from ATV where there are extensive infestations. We see her here a couple of times during the summer. 

I love these group efforts, because I know many of the people, having met them in previous years. At some of the meetups, we get a catered lunch and take time to visit.

Kara, head of the Centennial Valley Association, sets out lunch. 

Great food and company

Bill took us down a short trail to a wolverine trap.  The trap sends a radio signal when it is tripped- a top built of logs closes .  The trappers have to rush to the trap because the wolverine can chew through the logs pretty quickly.  Sometimes, they chew out but hang around to chew a bigger hole to get up the deer leg used for bait. 

This week, I  spent my first full day of this year working on weed control.  Two techs, Kyle, and Micky. and I went to an old homestead site and cut down Russian Pea, a shrub that makes edible peas, planted by the settlers.  Then we painted the cuts with an herbicide to prevent resprouting.  The kids also dug up two bags of houndstongue.

A houndstongue plant (internet image) - toxic to livestock

Micky cutting back new sprouts of a Russian pea

The tiny stumps in the middle was the only living part. We painted them with herbicide

The victors admiring their spoils

The foe completely routed

The houndstongue on the way to the burn pile

I'm late with this blog because I didn't get a day off this week.  We have had mostly rainy days, except for weed day.  It was too cold and wet to open the bluebird boxes on Monday, so I spent a long day on Tuesday on that.  I only worked 5 hours on Monday, so planned to work a few hours on Friday to catch up.  But on Thursday, Bill told me he had paid for me to go to the Wilderness First Aid and CPR class.  He thought he was reminding me. The class ran from Friday noon until 5:15 today (Sunday).  So I'm trying to get my Sunday blog out before Monday gets here. I totally enjoyed the class and learned that a lot of standard stuff has changed. We don't even use backboards any more and transport people with suspected spinal injuries on their sides.

We are supposed to have a valley wide spray day Tuesday. But we are supposed to have rain continue through Tuesday, so I expect that will be canceled.  I will probably take most of the day off tomorrow but will have to take a load of water to the horses by Tuesday. I also have to work around the wet, as there are a couple of places where the truck may get stuck if the ground is too soft.


Happy Father's Day to all you fathers.

Bye Bye Bacharis. Hello Willows

I am fortunate to have two wonderful young men helping me. Derek is working four days a week with me and Justin will be working for several days. This gives me time to get some of the heavy work done, especially getting into The Willows ponds and cutting out the baccharis so we can find struggling willows.  The original plan was to plant the willows in shallow water and forget about them.  But the ponds have been dry for several weeks so now the willows, which were barely rooted cuttings when we planted them, are near death.

Baccharis has filled in  the Willows pond areas

Derek cutting baccharis

Me weeding and building a dyke around a tiny, leafless stick of a willow

Justin watering one of the four trees he uncovered  while clearing this whole area himself.

Derek loading up the mule

Derek taking the baccharis to our pile

Derek adding a load of Baccharis to our recycling pile

So for the last couple of days, we have been using loppers to whack  the baccharis down. Then we weed around the little willow trees and build dykes around them to hold the water. Finally we haul buckets of water down the walkway to the nearest point of the trees. Then the guys jump (and I sort of roll) off the boardwalk and carry a couple of buckets to the trees. There's a wonderful rumor afoot that I'll get 100 to 150 feet of hose so I won't have to climb down the boardwalk and haul buckets of water over rough ground before fighting my way back up.  But the guys are young, strong and much taller than me and leap off and on the boardwalk and haul the heavy buckets with ease. . So more trees get to live.

Baccharis was never very much in evidence when I worked here several years ago.  But the hurricanes killed much of the normal vegetation and baccharis is an opportunist that can grow in poor, salty soils in dry conditions so now is the most obvious vegetation.

We had a nice reward for our efforts.  When we ran out of water, we stopped for the day and made a pass around Shoveler Pond before moving our operations to the shade shelter where we are cleaning, planting, bumping up, and filling pots with dirt for more plants. This little family of black-bellied wood ducks with very young chicks were swimming in the canal across the road from the dried up Shoveler Pond.

Black-bellied whistling duck family

We have several more days of chopping back the baccharis to find the willows. Later I hope to get it all removed so, when the rains come, the area can be a pond again. 

Meanwhile, I have recently started another batch of willow cuttings and plan to have about 100 or so of them by fall. We need more in this area as well as along the Hackberry Trail, and in the rookery pond. Here are the ones that just graduated to the shade shelter.  They start under a tarp at first.

Rooting willow cuttings - they will root all year around and have their own rooting hormones

So far this morning, I've hauled a load of water to the butterfly garden area and partially filled three buckets in the back of the truck.  Then I had breakfast and finished this blog.  Now I'm off for more willow branches so I can start another 30 or so trees before I work at the Visitor Center this afternoon.