Kellogg Biological Station

Part of Ping's research involves sampling for soil to measure bacterial respiration and productivity. Ping obtain the soil from a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site at Kellogg Biological Station (KBS). KBS is a field station with both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The LTER site is just one of the sites available at KBS. There is a variety of LTER sites, ranging from cold deserts in Antartica to agriculture sites like the one at KBS. These sites provide us scientists with a large dataset on a variety of ecosystem characteristics such as gas fluxes, soil properties and it also allow collaborations between scientists from different fields of study. And if the only association with the name Kellogg you have is Kellogg's Cornflakes, yes, it is the same Kellogg.
While Ping is not a big fan of driving 1 hour to get to the site, Ping do enjoy the sceneries throughout the drive and being there sampling. The atmosphere out at the country side is so different from the city. There is also an ice-cream place to stop by halfway - Mooville - where they have Ping's favorite type of duck - the white ones with yellow feet. Ping gets to spend 2 weeks out there this summer as Ping will be taking a class that is held there.
The plots that Ping have collected soil from are:
The agriculture plot.
It is planted with corn, soybean or wheat during the summer. Ping will be going out there to get more soil in a week! It will be wheat this year. Ping have yet to collect soil when they are growing soybean - never thought Michigan would have that much soybean but on the drive out to KBS, you can actually see quite a few soybean farms. Yummy edamame! Ping first had it when daddy served it for snacks one night when Ping was visiting the parents at Beijing - 毛豆. Love it ever since and it is one of Ping's favorite stuff to put in a salad!
The successional plots. This one was just taken about a month ago.
There is nothing much on these plots except grasses. Ping was in one of the early successional plot one time when Ping saw a snake coiled up and asleep. Hehe...definitely did not prompt Ping to think of 'taking picture' but 'turn around as quiet as possible and run!'. Ping still think about it when Ping have to go through one of these plots late in the summer when the grasses are about as tall as Ping's waist. But still gotta go get the soil!

The forest plots.
The forest plots are a lot more fun because it is like walking through a nature trail. Ping likes working with forest soil too because it is so much easier to sieve them! Hehee...

Besides the plots where Ping collect soil, there is also a nice garden by Gull Lake and all the tiny chipmunks!
The Gull Lake is one of the cleanest lake Ping have seen in Michigan (not that Ping have seen that many though).