So there are three sites I am collecting from; we got the first (and hardest) one done Friday, and since the student was free again this afternoon, we planned to do the other two provided it wasn't storming.
This week has ALREADY felt long. Monday was hectic in a couple ways at work and then I had CWF in the evening, and it was a LONG meeting. So it feels like I've been through a full week already.
Also, I didn't sleep well Sunday night or last night because there were a lot of things that just had to fall into place, some of which I had to manage, and it was just too many things to remember (one of them being: send off my state tax payment, which I did yesterday).
I also had unpleasant dreams, though perhaps that's as much that it's hot and humid now and I don't sleep as soundly. But I know a couple of them centered on having a lot of things to get done and being prevented from doing them somehow, and that's a classic anxiety dream for me.
Anyway, today I had to prepare the soils for the ecology lab tomorrow, and get out and set up at least most of the equipment (this is the hardest lab, logistically and procedurally) and then I had to be ready at 12:30 to meet with the student, and I had to be sure I had all the equipment, and I admit I am also always apprehensive now about how my knee will hold up.
The student was an hour late (no fault of her own) and I decided driving out that if she had something later in the afternoon (often students have late classes or jobs), we'd just do the one site.
It was kind of a comedy of errors getting there. You have to cross a double train track to the site,, and as we got up to it I saw a train slowly proceeding through. Okay, fine, we sit. But as it turned out.....there was a train sitting on the second track. Okay, fine, we wait for them to move after the first train (they were parked, blocking the intersection, technically against the law but you see it from time to time). There was a brakeman walking around looking at it and finally I said, "There's a driveway about 100 feet back, I'm going to back up and turn and there's a different way I can get there, if this train doesn't beat us to that crossing. (They did not). So we got to the site and found the sample points and as we were getting the soil, I heard a train horn and said "that'll be the train" so we decided to drive back the shorter way.
But. There was a THIRD train, but fortunately they were moving. I don't know what was up. Lots of tanker cars so maybe oil is being moved around? Given what's going on in the Gulf maybe more domestic oil is on the move now?
Anyway, I asked her if she had somewhere she needed to be. She didn't, so we went to the second site, which is the shortest one to do, and managed to get all the samples but I was really beat (and my knee is sore) by the time we were done. And I got snagged on a greenbriar and tore the heck out of one knuckle, but luckily I had a tetanus booster in 2023, so I should be safe there.
It was after 5:30 when I got home (I set up the second set of extractions)
So I decided to splurge again instead of either eating cereal or an almond-butter sandwich, and got one of the good big loaded baked potatoes from the bbq place - sour cream, cheese, your choice of meat (I got smoked chicken) and barbecue sauce. I'm glad I did, I needed a big and fast meal.
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