It seemed like a good idea at the time.

July 15, 2008 at 5:04 am · Filed under Barrow, Research and tagged: biomass, food, polartrec

No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, it is never enough. Despite being the best point frame partner the world has ever seen, able to hold five pieces of data error-free in my head while writing the plot points that SOMEONE neglected to put on the data sheet, Jeremy insists on treating me in an abominable fashion. The latest torture is the BIOMASS PROJECT.

I was held hostage in the lab for 48 hours this weekend, receiving only the occasional bathroom break or Rice Krispe Treat (of which we have fifty-four). My task: to take 25 one-gallon Ziploc bags filled with tundra and sort the vegetation while also removing roots, rocks and dirt (all below-ground materials). One pile of mosses, one pile of lichens, one pile for each species of vascular plant (maybe a dozen or so), one pile of leaf litter, and one pile of poop (all sorts), all suitable for weighing, drying, and then weighing again. Big Shot Jeremy decided to do twenty-four 70 cm x 70cm plots instead of the usual 10-25 cm size. He expects such perfection that we are at times driven to tears (for which there is no acceptable pile).

…that’s what I would report if Jeremy actually were that mean, and he is not. Not quite. We did get sleeping time and eating time, including a delightful team-bonding dinner at Sam and Lee’s, one of the few restaurants that we had not yet visited. It was, drumroll… Asian-American Cuisine. However, the appetizer tray actually included fire, and good times were had by all.

The vegetation is a pain in the you-know-what to sort, but we are getting slightly lazier better at it.  A mere six-and-three-quarters gallons remain! Sometimes we pass the time by listening to comedians, sometimes we watch Arrested Development, sometimes Jeanie plays her Marilyn Manson tunes, and sometimes we just play the Full Circle Game, the rules of which I will not detail here. (Rob is losing. Or maybe he’s winning? It’s impossible to tell.)

Other times we talk. The rules of talking include: laughing with one’s face pointed over one’s shoulder so to not scatter the piles with enthusiastic bursts of air from one’s nostrils. Better yet, don’t laugh. Don’t make your team members laugh. There is no room for levity in Earnest Science (the opposite of Lazy Science).

Our recruitment efforts succeeded in gaining only one helper for Sunday afternoon, but he was enthusiastic (and a new person to talk to). Frank is another PolarTREC teacher, like Elizabeth (to whom we said goodbye on Saturday!), and he is working with the archeology team out on the point. They are doing Lazy Science. Or Lazy Archelogy, same concept. You can tell because they have Sundays off.

Presently I am enjoying a working internet connection and a little investigative Googling in lieu of sleep. This is certainly a bad idea, but I will sleep when I’m dead. Or maybe in September. No lazy science here.

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