The End of Planting?

So this week was all around eventful if only because I am incredibly excited to see the part of the field season I missed during the end of summer last year. I finally figured out how to get at the chip in the back of my phone so I will be attaching some pictures to hopefully give readers a sense of the magnitude of work the whole lab has been engaging in for the past week. If I were to estimate the total amount of seeds that we put down in the field I would say the number is around 30.000 seeds in total, but as a mentioned before, this is the future of paramutation research so a few people wanted to do more, but we ran out of space.

Wednesday was a very interesting day because if you happened to go outside you stood a fair risk getting picked up and blown away. I hope that everyone's idea of a field at this time is that of a dry dusty patch of land, so these perfect conditions of wind and dust made it possible for a massive dust storm to form. At certain points in the measuring of one of the plots I was glad I was holding on to a measuring tape with another person at the end because I could have easily gotten lost in the whirling sands.

Thursday had all the signs of being a generally terrible day for working in the field. It was still just as windy as the day before, and there was a 40% chance of precipitation. If you are like me you would think that a little ground water is just what seeds need, but apparently a hard rain is the most threatening event possible for determining the fate of the Chandler lab. We were dealt a stroke of luck when all that came to pass was a few sprinkles keeping the dust at bay.

Today would have been a very productive day if not for the fact that half the lab had taken it off. I spent part of my day working on a power point for Mario, and the rest of it making seed packets for next week.

Despite today's mellow activities, I still believe there is never a dull moment in the Chandler lab. Projections as to what next week will bring on Monday.

Until then.