10102019: Delayed Entry

I have been meaning to make this first entry for a while, but like everything else I have been procrastinating. I am going to be keeping a journal about a research project I am an assistant for that I began about a while ago.

09262019:

Today is was my first day being out in the field with my boss Amila. He is a graduate student who is working on a project for Dr. Charles Barden. About a week ago I saw the posting for this job and I can still remember the excitement and the adrenaline rush I felt. This was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. This was the second time I felt like I am making progress in my future and what I want to do in life. I had ran up the stairs to fill out an application and turn in my resume in hopes that I get the job. One of the things i remembered a couple days after was the interview with Dr.Barden. I was in a dress shirt, slacks, and dress shoes ready to give it my all. The first words that came out of him were “Do you normally dress up like this?”. I had totally forgotten that my teacher Dr. Lavis had mentioned to my pre-internship course that most of these horticulture jobs don’t necessarily need the formal interview clothing, in fact some may be shocked. After a couple hours of discussing what I would be doing and who I would be working with I got the job. I had woken up at 6 o’clock today feeling severely drained. I made my self a cup of coffee and some breakfast and headed out to meet Amila at Throckmorton. It is now 7:45 AM and I am excited to be in the field today. We are taking many back roads to the Howe’s area where the project is being conducted. We drove into the grass and parked on the edge of the woods. As I put on bug repellent I zip up my jacket and tried to stay warm. I can still see my breath in the sharp cold air. Once Amila had gotten everything set up he chose a point for the GPS and we headed out. We didn’t go in too deep to begin with, the first point was at the edge of the woods. I still didn’t entirely know what to do just yet, but Amila told me what we would be doing with the trees here. We were counting seedlings and saplings of the following trees that are trying to grow in the shade. He counted the the seedlings in a 6.8 ft radius. During the pauses between counting I would look around the woods and see nature in its almost unaltered form. The sun shining through the canopy of the trees and the cooing of birds gave me the nostalgic feeling I would always have while camping. It felt natural being out there, in the woods, once again. We continued into the woods trying to find each point to start the counting. The deeper we went the harder the terrain became. This wasn’t the normal hike through the woods. There weren’t any trails or anything to guide us except this GPS. I had my bearings all the time so I knew how to get back at least. We went down into a valley at one point and my ankles regretted this the next day. A couple of the points were literally on the side of these steep hills and it was hard to write with one hand while also grabbing on to a tree so I didn’t roll down the hill. We kept on going, seeing all the majesty and natural beauty of the woods. We even saw a buck and a doe at one point, but they ran away once they saw us. We have taken the last count of our seedlings and it was time to go. The way back was much harder going up the hills in one go. Before hand it was stop and go and stop and go. But since we had no more points to find we tried to get back to the truck in one go. Once we got back we headed back to Throckmorton to call it a day.

10032019

Today is the second day working as a research assistant. Same kind of morning, but I now know what kind of terrain we are going to be hiking through now so I am prepared. I have my keys, phone, water bottle, and bug repellent in my fanny pack instead of a damaged cinch bag this time. I also brought my walking stick from home to help me move around. The hills are so steep that I needed it to climb the sides of them. Today we recorded a couple new trees. Before we mostly recorded Eastern Red buds, Hack-berries, Chinkapin Oaks,and Hickory trees. This time we found Cedar trees, Orange Osage, and Bur Oak trees. It was a lot easier to hike today as well because the ground was flatter when we came to the coniferous side of the woods. Also we didn’t have to hike through the woods and go up and down the hills, we were close enough of to the other edge of the woods that we just walked around back to the truck. I love going on these excursions into the woods and cant wait for the next work day