Fieldwork day today

I decided to go ahead and restart the soil invertebrate project - this is on the area that was flooded last year vs. an area not flooded. We didn't have flooding this spring, and I admit I wanted to get my "first samples" earlier, but first I was too freaked out by the pandemic thing, and then we were asked to stay off campus, so.

At any rate - the first samples I took last year were in July, so I guess it's okay.

I admit I was apprehensive - it's been very humid, and humidity plays badly with my low-grade asthma, and also walking out through tall vegetation with 45 pounds or so of soil on my back (in bags, in a backpack) is physically stressful. (I have to go out and do it alone, most of the time: no one free to go with me, and anyway, all they really could do was watch over me and maybe carry some of the soil).

I did run in to grab the backpack I had left in the lab last time and to check in with the secretary - I was leaving about 8:15, so I told her if I wasn't back by 10:45 to first try calling my cell phone, and then send someone* after me if I didn't answer.

(*Her grown son is a local sheriff deputy and I suspect that's who would be called, but that's fine)

She also gave me my "PPE kit" that we were all promised: warnings about not coughing on people (Well, DUH - even before this that's shockingly bad manners to do), and a wee tiny bottle of hand sanitizer that will last maybe a week, and a mask - cloth, washable. And branded with the university logo and I'm sorry for not being more rah-rah but I am going to wear the masks I bought for myself, which I chose either to be cute (one with cartoon tardigrades on it) or that match with clothes I wear (pink or taupe or multicolored floral) instead. I'll keep that one in my office as a spare.

Hopefully the department chair can source some face shields for in lab, or in case I have a student with hearing issues who needs to read lips.

But yeah. that was a jarring note in an already unsettled morning

I admit I have...memories....tied up with field sampling. The first set of samples ever, I just finished the sorting of them right before I had to go up to Illinois when my dad died. And as a result, I didn't get an August sample, and then the September sample was collected the day my friend Charles had his ultimately-fatal car accident....so I always fear something bad happening. (I guess I took an October sample and it was okay, though my memories of last fall are kind of fragmented, I was kind of in a fog of grief a lot of the time and just running on autopilot).

This time, it went fine. One thing I had learned earlier - the flooded-area samples are down a slope from the unflooded-area ones, and so it's better to collect those FIRST, because there's less stuff to haul back up that slope. I think the September sampling nearly did me in - I had to take a knee a couple times on the 100 yard or so walk back to the path to get to my car because it was very humid and I had had to haul up the slope with the full 45 pounds of soil.

This time, I figured "well, maybe I'll grab the flooded area samples, and if I feel like it's getting too heavy, either run back to my car and drop them off, or carry them out to the path and pick them up on the way back in" but the soil this time was dryer (so: lighter) and after getting the first set I figured I was okay, so I just did them all.

Surprisingly, I found most of the location flags I had set out, and that tells me the few I couldn't find, I was more or less sampling in the right area. (Sometimes deer eat the plastic flags. I'm sure it's not good for the deer but I don't know a better way to mark the spots)

I did grab one photo while out there. I *think* this is a Hypericum, not sure of the species, I didn't take a very close look at it as I was focusing on getting the soil

I will say as long as I was out there, I could forget all the mess that the world is in - I was by myself and outside (so no mask necessary) and I was focused on the task. Things were normal, and that was refreshing.

I got all fourteen samples, and managed the walk back to my car fine. (It's humid, but not as bad as some field days. It's supposed to get really bad this weekend, which is partly why I made sure to do it now). Drove back to campus, set up the extraction for the first batch.

I heard my one colleague who is teaching this summer (online) in his office, but I could tell he was recording a lecture, so I didn't stop by to say hi, despite not having seen him in person for four months plus.

Came back home, needed to shower and wash my hair (both to clean off the insect repellant - I worry about ticks out in the field - and also to make sure I didn't have any ticks walking on me). Tried to unbraid my hair - it's gotten very long, I joked about trying to grow it down to my butt - and this happened:

I couldn't unsnarl it and it was right at the end, so I just got out my sewing shears. I had to even it up afterward:

That's maybe about 2 1/2 or 3 inches. I can feel a difference and hopefully I got rid of the worst split ends so my hair won't grab onto itself so much any more. (It has gotten kind of dry and brittle recently, I don't know if it's stress. I started taking hair vitamins again but they don't seem to be doing a lot)

Anyway. Board Meeting is tonight and I am wondering if we talk more about reopening or not....I know cases are going up here, so we'll see. I *think* if we sat spaced out and wore masks and didn't sing and did communion differently, it would be okay....but then, there's not a lot of point in meeting in person if all those things are off the table. I don't know. I would be open to the idea of us meeting again PROVIDED people are willing to mask up and similar, but would also be open to continuing online church for now.

But for now: I need to eat something, and maybe I spend the afternoon sewing on the newest quilt top as a reward for getting the fieldwork done.