Master Naturalist Conference Day 2

At the conference we found our way to the dorms in the night.  In the morning I had a chance to look around.  Although it was lightly raining, I scouted out the area and saw we had a great view of a lake.  Loons, Canadian geese, golden eye ducks and common mergansers were out on the lake.  I watched the common mergansers with my binoculars.  The male merganser followed the female and every few minutes would throw his head back as far as it would go and make a cackling noise. I think he was showing off.  At breakfast they served yogurt, cereal, raisins and croissants.  At first I turned down a croissant; too many carbs.  Then I learned they were home made croissants fresh out of the oven.   I saw people really enjoying the taste and the smell.  I changed my mind.  If I'm going to have carbs, let them be great carbs.  And my croissant was a GREAT carb.  The flaky layers melted in my mouth.  This wonderful breakfast set me up for a day of learning about nature.  My first class was about black bears on the move.  Bears with GPS collars were tracked and their movements recorded.  The next class was about wild rice.  Harvesting wild rice is an activity that is growing out of style.  Now that California grows modified rice in paddies, the price of wild rice has gone down.  The modified rice can be harvested all at one time by machinery. Natural wild rice ripens a few grains at a time.  To get all the rice, a person must return to the same patch several times.  Using a canoe, one person pushes the canoe forward with a long pole while the other one bends the rice over the boat with a stick

and taps the long grass with the other stick so only the ripe grains fall into the canoe.  The person tapping the grains wears long pants, boots, and long sleeves because the grass if full of bugs and prickly leaves.   The quality of wild rice varies.  The rice in Nett Lake (near Duluth) has extra long grains.  The other lakes have rice that is just as good in protein and taste but aren't as long. Collecting wild rice is a lot of work and fewer people are doing it.  The state keeps track of the ages and gender of those applying for wild rice licenses.  Most of the license holders are now over 60 years old.  So now I have another thing I want to try.  I want to buy a license and collect some wild rice.  I will need a partner in the canoe so let me know if you are interested.  You can propel the canoe with the push pole or you can collect the wild rice with the ricing sticks; your choice.