Get Dirt(y) (6/6)

As I sit, hunkered over my phone and sucking down a much-deserved milkshake, the pads of my fingers cry out in an agonizing pain.

Well, okay, it's not that bad, but I did have a really rough day. It started fine enough, got up at 630, padded around while I made my coffee and tried to be amiable with my bunkmates (no easy task that early, but so far so good.) Then I showed up for work, pulling up in a truck that is far too big for me. Its a Silverado. I have to take a flying leap to get in, but hey, I still have to climb up on kitchen chairs in the kitchen to reach the tupperware. Anyway, I started the day well. My supervisor gave me a presentation on hydrology, something that my molecular mind is having some trouble understanding completely. I get the basics, but if you asked me to explain what was going on at the swamp, I doubt I could do a decent job. To continue- someone from another government sector (I can't for the life of me remember this acronym, I'll see if I can find it.) came to the refuge to give us a hand doing soil samples. In a wetland like this, the soil and water activities are very closely linked. I liked the soil stuff, there was a little chemistry I understood, but this was not the dark part of the day.

I went hiking through that mess,
can you believe that? And I may be
smiling, but I am Not. Happy.

In pursuit of the most perfect soil sample to ever be collected, we went on a very, very arduous journey. At least, I thought it was difficult, but it was the first time I had ever done anything like this. It started easy enough, we pulled off one of the ditches in the area of the swamp called the blocks. The blocks are a collection of mile x mile pieces of land where a lot of conservation and observation happens. We went out onto one that was burned several years back. It started out alright, I had a new pair of hiking pants on and my new, beautiful hiking boots snuggly on my feet. The path we were on started as a bulldozer path, it had grown over since then, but my supervisor had a machete and I was carrying a tool used to collect soil from down in the earth, and I was using it as a walking stick as we went. Then, fairly quickly, almost out of nowhere, it became JUNGLE.

I'm exaggerating again but I am not kidding when I said I had a rough day. There were blackberry bushes, small shrubs, saplings, and I got tangled up in all of them. The thin hiking pants did nothing against the thorns, and were all but torn apart by the trek through the woods. I fell like I was swimming though plantlife, the red maple saplings snaked around and between my legs, ensaring me as I walked. I was third in line, and moving slow. I kept getting caught on the blackberries and their vicious thorns. It was a long, long hour and a half. We probably only hiked an eighth of a mile, but I was drenched in sweat by the end of our hike. We actually didn't even make it to the site that my supervisor wanted to sample. By the time we turned around and made it back to the road, my hands were covered in blood. Pinpricks of blood were welling up on my knuckles and forearms. There's a picture of me  smiling attached to this post. That was towards the end of our hike, and I may be grinning, but I was not. happy.

Wait, though. It gets dirtier.

After trekking unsuccessfully through the underbrush in the blocks, we turned to the southern part of the refuge. An area that had been burned recently, and is made up of plenty of standing water. Today, I did exaclty what I told my parents I wouldn't do. I believe my exact words were 'Don't worry, I'm not going to go trudging through the swamp.'

I went trudging through the swamp.

I was walking on the tops of slick logs and scratchy grasses, moving among the red maple saplings and the small cypress trees while crushing every blackberry patch I could get my boots on. This was easier travelling, but it  was mucky and treacherousIt reminded me of the swamp filled with souls from that one Lord of the Rings movie. A few times I slipped, catching myself with the shovel I was carrying as I tried to balance on the small pawprints of land scattered through the marshy area. I'm sure its no surprise to tell you that I fell into the marsh.

Rather, I sank, knee deep into the mud and muck with a really embarrassing noise. My supervisor gave me a concerned look and when he asked me if I could get out, I honestly thought that at that very moment, the swamp was going to gobble me up entirely. Though, with a great heave I crawled and clambered to my feet, the mud making an awful suction sound as I was reborn from the wetland as a filthy swamp thing. At this point in time, I was more than just wet. I was sweaty, bloody, and muddy.  My feet sloshed in my shoes, which squished in turn with every gummy step I took. So, in order to keep my head in the game I mentally threw my hands in the air and said 'Screw it, my feet are wet, I'm torn up, and my gorgeous boots are filled with mud.' From there I trampled through the swamp like I owned the place. How much muddier could I get?

That was a dumb question. I got even muddier.

So, as I've said before, we were in search of soil samples. Fred and I are both new to soil, so with our representative from the NRCS as our guide, we huddled around a small patch of grass, and after she gave the okay, she drove her shovel into the ground the an earthen queen,  pulling from the mud a squared piece of what was to become our sample.

A giant spider we passed on our treacherous journey.

Reluctantly, the cross section came up to the surface, and she set it on its side. She then picked it apart. I had never really though about soil in a scientific setting, but dirt is actually kind of cool. Pointing out the different organic layers based on color, structure, and texture, the soil monarch analyzed the saturated earth based on the levels of decomposition of the organic matter based on the aforementiomed attributes. At first I didn't see the textures or the subtleties in the colour changes, but after she measured out the layers, my eyes adjusted like they do in the dark, and it became clear. She then served me a healthy helping of the top layer of this mud pie and told me to feel it and run it between my fingers. For a brief moment, I just looked at the unusual gift I had been given. A sopping, mushy pile of decomposed leaves.

Hopefully my distaste wasn't evident, but I went for it. And wouldn't you know, the more decomposed the soil matter is, the slicker it gets. I was tempted to make an impromptu facial mask, but I would like for my supervisor to take me seriously. So after the demonstation, we tried it on our own.
I picked the horizons out fairly quickly after. They're like layers in a cake. After that I was really tempted to paint my face as if the mud all over my hands was war paint. I was reminded of the time my brother and I made mudpies in the dugout at one of my dad's softball practices. I didn't mind it then, and I was learning not to mind the mud now.

When we returned to the truck with our ziplocks filled with mud and my shoes filled with swamp I was hungry, tired, muddy, bloody, sweaty, and overall, both mentally and physically exhausted. I don't think I would have minded this had I been doing it on my.own terms, or for glory maybe, but I guess science is important too.

When I got home after those trying, trying events, the first thing I did was strip down for a tick check and a shower. I had been mentally preparing myself for my first tick all week, but when I looked down at my tender, abused legs and saw that lone star tick inching up my thigh, I made a sound comparable to the sound my dog makes when you accidentally step on her and flung the parasite away.

Wailing, whimpering, screaming, I cast the thing away and jumped backwards. Thoughtlessly, I had sent it flying into the depths of my room. The room in which my bed, clothings, and earthly possessions reside. So what did I do after that?

After mentally preparing myself for this moment with cool collection and steely determination, I overreacted. Muddy and half undressed, I tore my room apart, throwing everything I owned into the washer with nothing but a towel to cover my paranoia. I then hopped in the shower and found a tiny little tick embedded in my hip.

This was a little easier to handle. I clawed it out of my sore skin with my bare hands not bothering with tweezers- why should I, after one of my bunkmates had seen me, wild eyed, as I stuffed the washer to bursting with muddied forearms and a towel? I sent the tiny monster shooting down the drain, and can now say that I work at the Great Dismal Swamp.

I did not have fun today, but I'll live for now. And if I can make it through blackberry mazes, the relentless marsh, and ticks, I figure that I'm just about unstoppable.