Fieldwork is done

So I dragged myself out of bed at an early hour (5:40 am) for a Saturday, got dressed in the crummy old chinos that have the permanent stain on them from when I tried to change the tire on the old wheelbarrow and put an old t-shirt on, and boot socks. And I grabbed a long-sleeved shirt and my boots (but put tennis shoes on: I cannot drive in my field boots; the soles are so thick I can't easily feel the pedals in the car and I feel less safe driving)

Went out to get the car.

It was raining.

Oh crap.

I got the car out, filled my drinking-water bottles, decided, heck, I'll go out there, it's brighter off to the west (the direction in which I'd be driving), maybe it will let up.

Drove through several very heavy rain bands (the site is maybe 15 miles west of me). Almost turned around at one point. Kept listening for my phone because I figured my student might call, calling the thing off. (I really didn't WANT to call it off - because that would mean rescheduling, and WHEN?!?? I really want next Saturday off). So I pulled in the lot for the site and waited. It continued to rain. My student and her boyfriend drove up, she hopped out and asked if I wanted to try doing the fieldwork.

I taught her the trick of clamping a flat (ziplock-type) plastic bag over the top of the data sheets on the clipboard to try to help keep it dry. We waited about 10 minutes and it was a bit lighter rain then, so we decided to try it.

It's really mostly a two-person job - her boyfriend just kind of hung around and looked at stuff, but I'm glad he was there, because if there was any trouble, he could have helped out. (He also took a photo of us working).

The first half or so was working in the rain. But I will admit, working in the rain - even though you get soaked to the skin, and your hair gets soaked, and your cloth hat is falling down in your face because the brim is soaked - is a lot less miserable than working out in high heat and bright sun where you get soaked from the inside out from sweat.

I got almost a little chilled but being a bit too cold when you're working hard is better than being a bit too hot.

(I did have one instance where I had to take a knee because I started coughing - asthma from the humidity and being surrounded by ragweed pollen - but I got over it fast)

We got, I think, five transects done (of 12 samples each). We had done four the first time out; that last transect had us bumping right up against a patch of Gleditsia triacanthos (honey locust) that had moved into the area in the past 18 years, and I didn't fancy crawling through that to try to get one last transect to perfectly match the earlier study. (Honey locust has NASTY thorns - long, and the "triacanthos" part of the name refers to the fact that many of the thorns have two side-barbs on them - and I have known the thorns to penetrate the rubber sole on a field boot so yeah, I was not into crawling through them or making my student do so.

(I was mostly doing the heavy lifting stuff - running the tape out, doing the long walking - on the grounds that I'm kind of used to it and I also know the area so I know where most of the holes you don't want to step down into are.)

She did the datakeeping and has gotten pretty good at identifying the (sadly few) species of plants we encounter (diversity on the site has tanked completely since 2000; sericea lespedeza has invaded and it's pretty much taken over; most of the other forbs are gone and even much of the grass is gone. If I owned the land? I'd probably have it penned off and be flash grazing it with goats, with plans to do a dormant season burn after pulling the goats off, or, failing that, getting someone herbicide-certified to nuke the area, because if you don't aggressively eliminate sericea, it eliminates all the other herbaceous plants and the site has effectively no value now as a teaching lab, and probably limited value for wildlife. I know burning is less good than certain herbicides at eliminating it, because it's pretty burn tolerant, but I really balk at using herbicides or pesticides...)

She's not a field biologist - her career plans are actually dental school, but not getting admitted this fall made her decide to do a master's degree with us, on the grounds that maybe in a few years it will be easier to get in, and also with a master's degree, that experience would help. She IS working (as a dental tech), so I'm thinking her mental timeline is less crucial than some people's is. (If I had a good job that paid the bills, I think I could wait for something like professional school if I had to).

But anyway: we got it done. I feel some better than I did last night. I do need to wash my hair (it's dried stiff now, after getting wet in the rain - I had it in a braid and it was hard to unbraid) and eat something and do more piano practice and then, maybe, try to finish reading that large ILL book, though I have given myself permission to not finish it if I just can't.