The Vegcrew

                Let me introduce you to my coworkers: The Vegcrew

Look at that burl! -Kate Poirier

In addition to finding out how tall trees are, I work with the Vegcrew on the ten-year survey of the trees in the forest. We do this by walking around to “Valleywide” plots and making sure that all of the trees that were there ten years ago are either still alive or accounted for. The plots are 12.62 meters in radius and they work fast, so by the time I can help them we’re usually looking for “bodies” of dead trees. We also look for new trees with diameters greater than 10 cm, called recruits. They’re such cute little baby trees! My favorite trees are the really big ones, the ones that need two people to measure, and really require you to hug the tree. It feels nice.

Matt Harband, of vegcrew. Photo by Kate

We see all sorts of strange stuff at the plots, too. One day someone had left us a message saying “TURBO” on one of the trees, written in sharpie. The positioning of the center pole in our plots is important, requiring us to log a few “witness” trees to make sure it’s in the right place, and occasionally the witnesses are dead, prompting renditions of “Can I Get a Witness?” Trees like to fall on the posts too, and it’s up to us to move them. Sometimes the strange stuff I see at my plot ends up being my coworkers. If they weren’t weird, they probably wouldn’t be half as wonderful and funny as they are. We’ve

found moose antlers, parts of a moose skeleton, and on steep muddy slopes, gravity. It’s still working!

Technical difficulties: our center stake was crushed by
two trees, then eaten by a bear. Photo by Kate

From left to right: Ailis Clyne, Madeline Montague, Kate Poirier, Matt Harband. We found a skull! Photo by Ailis.

I’d also like to take a moment to mention how amazing my mentor is. Affectionately known as “Nat”, she is an inspiration in many ways. Not a single one of her autoimmune issues prevents her from getting out into the field and doing what she loves, and she is one of the most dedicated and hardest working bosses I have ever had the fortune of working under. Her sense of humor, honesty, and total aversion to optimism make every day interesting, and I have learned so much about plants, mosses, and lichens from her. Nat is the champion of the broad leaved orchid, and I hope that someday more will be understood about this elusive and mysterious plant. Being a full eight inches taller than me means that she is a much faster bushwacker, and if you think that you can beat her in the “100 meter hobblebush dash” I’d ask you to reconsider. She knows Hubbard Brook better than the back of her hand because she looks at it far more often. People have mistaken her for being in Olympic training, and she probably carries half of my weight in her backpack every day. I hope that everybody gets an opportunity to work under a “Nat” at one point in their lives. If I could be half as good as her at getting a job done efficiently, thoroughly, and with a minimum of fuss I would be very happy.

-Kate