As a field botanist, I get to experience amazing adventures, beautiful sites, and many many interesting circumstances...some of which have me guessing on what it is I really do for plants...
What do I do? Hmm how about sinking in a mud pit, queue two years ago in a bog in Oregon. Yep that is me with very fashionable waders, notice the mud level on my legs this is after crawling out with my crew's help and crying for my mom..literally :)...
Planting eelgrass in an intertidal mud flat...a very clean job let me tell you.. (same waders only this time the mud was expected)
Having very easily manageable transects...through a thicket of strangling branches and hidden stinging nettle
And oh if i could explain in words the complete terror this lichenologist put me through when he had me follow him scaling shear hillsides for the rare nephroma occultum, if only...
And the infamous Brent, worst driver of Stillwater, that slammed our rental into a treachous ditch on an unmanaged forest road, this was my first field effort at Stillwater..
And yet, every single experience I shared above and all the many I haven't just plain makes me happy that I chose this line of work. Through wasp attacks, dashing wildfires, losing too many sunglasses to count, and prickles from every known plant, I have these sights and very good people to look forward to. This is what i do and why i do it. 
Signing off for now..
Emmy B
