Tedious Science and Explorations

It was one of those days in the research world when I was in the lab all day! I was doing the tedious and repetitive, but still very important part of science: separating and weighing. Lats Thursday, I went out to the field to take Phragmites samples from outside the chambers. Then, over the weekend, all 51 of these samples sat in the drying oven (look, that's my box in the drying oven!) until Monday morning. On Monday morning, I took them out of the oven, and into the Biogeochem lab. In lab, I carefully removed the dry and brittle sample from their individual paper bags. Then, separated the stem from the leaves for each sample. The stem and leaves were weighed separately for each sample, and finally individually bagged in new labeled paper bags. That took all morning!

After lunch,the lab smelt awful!
But it was all in the name of science!
The reason for the stench was marsh pore water. Pore water is the water that resides below the surface of the ground, in this case below the surface of the marsh. Pore water samples were taken at 20cm, 40cm, and 80cm below the surface at both Fox Point and Korn Island. Back in lab, the pore water was carefully syringed into small vials. This disruption released all the scent of the marsh into the enclosed lab. Apparently last year when pore water was used, security came by on the report of a suspicious smell and asked them to open the windows! It must not have been so bad this year, but it certainly smelt awful!

After work is my time! So I went on a bike ride on one of the trails and took one of the side paths I hadn't taken before. The path get very narrow and very steep, so I stopped at the top, left my bike and explored on foot. I found a few hidden treasures on the path. There was a little stream winding its way under the bridge that I walked over. And a set of wooden stairs winding its way up the hill. I have found that no matter where I go on SERC's campus, I always end up in a gorgeous place! Which is simply a perfect addition to my research! 

Diner was all my own creation because a lot of people left the house to run errands when I decided to make diner. I had a variety of ingredients that needed to be used up. So I made a sort of randomn meal of seasoned sweet potato fries and warm cinnamon apples. The sweet potato fries were perfectly cooked and seasoned! The cinnamon apples were great, just next time I would peel them, even though the recipe said to peel them before starting, I forgot to. Opps! But nevertheless they still turned out delicious!