Field Assistant

I'm currently trying to get some field work in for my thesis project in order to have some data to present at a meeting in Boston in two weeks and I've been in the field several times in the past 1.5 weeks. I went out today, but it was a little different: Atalie tagged along. She portrayed perfectly the role of the "unlucky field assistant." Her first misfortune came when the person that used the waders previously didn't hang them up to dry when finished, never mind the fact that the waders leaked (which we found out later). Getting the waders passed her knees seemed to be a feat in and of itself, cue misfortune number 2. It turns out that it is nearly impossible for a woman possessing a bit more rump than the average woman to pull on a pair of youth-sized waders (again, which we found out later). After some tugging, she squeezed in only to find that she couldn't bend her knees or lift her feet more than a foot off of the ground: misfortune number 3. At this point it was getting comical. To make matters worse, as she was slowly hobbling over some vines I turned around and just about stabbed her with the GPS pole, luckily, the waders absorbed the impact. She's tough, that's for sure!




We went on anyway and managed to get some work done. Atalie's principle role was photographer, which she did well (as you can see) and I used a GPS to map some landforms and survey points. She put up with a lot and didn't whine at all and even though it wasn't the most productive field day (mostly because I still don't really know what I'm doing) it was still fun!