Saturday, June 25, 2011

Eeahhh!

In my last post I mentioned that I had been doing some volunteer work for a local environmental group.  This involved hiking a mile through the woods (at three different places) and then taking a sample of the water from the river at the end of each of the three hikes.  Two of these locations required some down hill and up hill hiking and really got the heart beating and the sweat poring.  The last selection site was just off a highway and required hiking through debris that had either been thrown by cars or washed up by a nearby flood area.  That was the place I showed in the previous post.  Looks idyllic, doesn't it.  I neglected to show the sand bags, bottles and other stuff.

Hubby and I started this project at 1:30 P.M. and did not head back to the "lab" (really an extra room on the back of the museum/house) until 5:00 P.M.  We had to filter the samples for both chlorophyll and suspended solids which meant filtering six times...two for each sample.  Then some of the sample also went into a refractometer for a salinity check...the river was freshwater.  Finally three samples from each site were poured into little vials and labeled and frozen along with the filters placed carefully in foil.  I am just telling you all this to impress you with my technical skills.

I think we must have used a double filter for the first sample because we waited almost 20 minutes for it to filter through.  We reduced our sample from 300 ML to 150 ML and  the next sets took only 5 or 6 minutes to filter completely.  We also had to label the vials and the filters and create a data sheet as well as complete another log.  We were not done until 8:00 and we rushed through our cleanup of the area and headed to the nearby I-HOP for a quick dinner.  It was in the middle of dinner I remembered that I had forgotten to complete two blanks on the 'custody sheet' and so back we drove, retrieved the key from under the log as it got darker, tried to do this so that a nearby family having a picnic did not see we were getting a key, and made our way back into the little back room.

I am clearly not cut out for all the details of environmental work.

On top of all of this I have been tormented by chigger bites which I probably got when sitting on a log near the river's edge while writing in water temp numbers.  I have not had to endure these pests for years and had forgotten how miserable they can make you.  They are a mite, red in color, but too small to be seen by most human eyes, and when they bite you with special mouth parts they liquefy the skin after creating a feed tube called a stylostome of the skin cells.  Don't you just love this info?  This tube they create is the thing that causes the unbearable itching because they fall off when you first scratch and then die.  But the tube stays in for days.  You must NOT scratch because the more you scratch the more it itches!  It can take 10 days for this stylostome to reabsorb.  It is nice to know that their mouths are not very strong, and so, they prefer the tender skin of women and children.  I am now on day 6....ONLY FOUR MORE TO GO!   Eeeeaahh!

16 comments:

  1. I bet most environmental work is sweaty and tedious: good for you! Volunteers like you are hard to come by and I'm sure you are appreciated.

    Chiggers! I am so sorry to hear you have chigger bites. I was introduced to them in Alabama and they are not at all fun. "The more you scratch, the more you itch:" hellish.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow...I am impressed. I bet hauling/toting 500 ml was not easy either....I mean how many did you carry? You have such a neat life....but, neat or not....I am not good with the details of filtering, measuring, testing, so I am glad you are. The chiggers.....how do you Not Scratch in the middle of the night?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am also very impressed by your efforts. I'll stick to my volunteering at the library--although I did come across a mouse there once.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous2:24 PM

    No chiggers in Maine, thank goodness, but I know exactly how they feel from when I was a kid.

    My husband works for an environmental engineering company, so I am very aware of all that needs to be done to monitor a river. It is important work. Thanks for being a part of it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm very, very allergic to chiggers, so I'm relieved we don't have them here. The 30 years I lived in KC, however I learned to be extremely careful, because of my violent reaction to their bites. I was 0.5° away from being hospitalized! Not fun at all. Before being outside, I sprayed my feet and legs thoroughly with insect repellant, which I abhor using. No choice for me, however.

    However, I'm thankful for people like you who are willing to brave the chigger-infested wilds for a good cause!

    ReplyDelete
  6. You deserve a medal for continuing this work. I would rather have pain that an itch; especially one so irksome. It can drive you crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  7. i am most impressed with your technical skills! what good work you are doing! i knew nothing of chiggers til i read this. you make them sound both fascinating and dreadful. i hope you find some relief soon!

    ReplyDelete
  8. good luck with the insects bite. I cannot resist scratching an itch... i would have to wear socks on my hands while i sleep lol otherwise i would itch while am sleeping.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Eeahhh is right!

    ReplyDelete
  10. So glad we don't have chiggers here. I attract every biting insect that's going. I'm impressed by your environmental volunteering - well done!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Oh my gosh, you are brave. Yes, I didn't want but was amused by all the chigger info. I hated them when I lived back there.

    Thank you for doing that.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Women and children first! I have some poison ivy and am trying hard not to scratch.

    So many things sound better in theory than in actuality and everything takes more time that we think it will. Often I feel, glad I did it and glad it's over!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I didn't realise you could volunteer for environmental stuff like that. It all sounds very worthwhile. But as for the chiggers - yeuch...... sounds like the horrors we get like cleggs (big, nasty poisonous red flies) or midgies (tiny biting pests.) All of them cause me utter misery. Makes what you are doing all the more brave.

    ReplyDelete
  14. You know what, dear Tabor, I'd rather do my gardening, if it's all the same to you.
    I am most definitely not a scientist.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I enjoy inside volunteering like signing up patients in the free clinic or reading stories in the county children's shelter...both in air conditioned comfort and no chiggers:)

    ReplyDelete

Take your time...take a deep breath...then hit me with your best shot.