The Perils of Cholla

I can not emphasize how sneaky and painful the cholla cactus can be. Yesterday, on our survey, while we were walking along looking for archaeological sites, my co-working was impaled by some kind of cholla--maybe a pencil cholla or stick cholla with longer spines. It had 1-1.5 inch spines and was easily 1 inch into his calf muscle. He yelped quite loudly and then cursed for quite awhile. It took the pliers on his multitool (like a leatherman) to remove the spine from his leg. He then looked at his calf and it looked like a big bruise with swelling was forming around the puncture. He limped back the rest of the transect to the truck and we had to make it a short day.

This is not the first time I have seen someone traumatized by cholla. In Arizona, while hiking with friends, I told my firends about the infamous Jumping Cholla, also known as Teddy Bear Cholla, which has the reputation of actually jumping on you. In fact, it does not take much for it to attach, very slight contact will allow it to grab on to you, so it seems to jump on you. I never found this out for myself, knowing that names like this have roots in reality, but one of the guys I told this too just had to test this idea out. He didn't believe it. He went over to closely examine one, reached out to touch the something, and a cholla plant jumped on his hand. Actually it came from below his hand where it had been cleverly disguised, and he touched it. Their spines are even worse than the spines on the cholla that attacked my co-worker above. The Jumping Cholla has slightly curled thorns that go in every which direction making them very difficult to remove. Once again the leatherman was used to remove it. But it was not pretty.

So remember, keep away from cholla!

The Rolling Plains of West Texas

I am currently surveying (looking for archeological sites) in West Texas on a line where they will put in a water pipe and pumps to get water from Lake Alan Henry to Lubbock - about 50 miles. We are walking through some rough rangeland with mesquite shrubs, prickly pear and cholla cacti and other rangey plants grasses and forbs. I love it. No trees, nothing but sky and red dirt -well mostly red dirt. We have to walk the whole distance with an occasional shovel test. This will take us 1000 feet up in altitude over that distance (from ca 2300 feet above sea level to 3300 feet above sea level). So far we have only found places where people were looking for good rocks from which to make tools. Not too exciting, but I really enjoy working out in the plains again. I have spent the last few years in wooded areas and I am relieved to be away from all those god-awful trees. :)

However, my feet hurt!

Still, we see rabbits and deer skitter off away from us, every so often, and hawks flying over head. Many other song birds sing to us as we pass by. And yesterday we had four or five horses run over to greet us (probably assuming we had treats for them). Quite a treat for us, although we had nothing for them.

Brazoria

I am currently working in Brazoria, Texas on removing African-American burials that fall underneath a road in the city. It is a fun project with good co-workers and it is sunny and warm. It may sound gruesome or weird to excavate burials but it is pretty interesting. These burials date to the 19th and early 20th century and have to be moved so they won't be destroyed. MOre are probably under the houses in the area, but we may never know. A cemetery is just east of the road and was established in the mid 20th century, but more than likely burials in this area date much much earlier. A plantation is nearby and it may be this first started out as a slave cemetery.

Each coffin is different - some are shaped like count dracula's, an irregular diamond shape others taper toward the feet or are rectangular. Some coffins were placed within outer boxes but some just had planks across the top. When we remove the wood we find screws that held the lid down - these are sometimes ornate and sometimes very plain caps. We also find handles associated with the coffins. Within the coffins we find the human remains, in varying degrees of decomposition but only consisting of bones - some bones are severly fragmented, some are fairly well intact. All of them have been disturbed by the ground water and the natural forces of the earth - sometimes leg bones are under the head or vertebrae are down by the feet.

It is interesting work.

Winter Holiday

This was really fun holiday for me.

I had a really great time at our office party in Austin on the 19th - we had secret santa presents and Threadgills catered turkey and stuffing and all the works lunch and lots of wine and beer. Afterwards, a few of us sat around at a bar that had just about everything to drink (Opal Devines) and had a delightful time talking and drinking.

Shortly thereafter I was back in Lubbock and my parents, my husband, and I celebrated the Winter Solstice with a pork crown roast (a wonderful invention) which was really tasty and opened our presents to each other.

Then my husband and I flew up to Boise Idaho and celebrate Christmas with his sister Bridgette, her husband and son and with Sean and Bridgette's mom, Michele. We stayed there for six days. We had many wonderful meals with leftovers that lasted for days. Opened many presents (although the ones we had shipped to them were stuck in Portland due to the crazy weather they had there) and played rummikub, uno, scrabble, "left, right, center" and Route 66 games. It was also very snowy there and very beautiful since they live on the outskirts, in the foothills, with their backdoor to the hills leading up to the mountains. Our travel was uneventful, which was unexpected.

For New Years eve, my husband andI were back in Lubbock recovered from the trip and enjoyed each others company with a bit of champagne and tapneades and bruschetes followed by steaks on New Years day.

I am really not ready to go back to work.

Christmas at Starbucks

Today, I left Lubbock for Austin around 10am. I stopped at Starbucks, going through the drive thru, to get a soy latte and a scone. When I pulled up to the window to pay, the guy at the window tells me the person behind me wants to pay for me. A woman in a big SUV bought my coffee and scone. I was surprised. What a nice gesture. It really made my day. I plan to do something similar. I have always liked the idea of random acts of kindness. It is nice to see it in action.

Also, on my trip, in the town of Lamese, I dodged a VW bug sized tumbleweed.

Life is full of surprises.

Merry Christmas

Home at last, home at last

I got home this afternoon after spending a little time in the Austin office talking with different folks about the different projects I am working on. It took me about 6 hours to get back, listening all the while to the satellite radio . . .an hour or two of cnn, some flipping through the music channels, a few selections in my play list and finally I was home. I still had to wait 2 hours for my husband to get home, but it is nice to be back in my biome, curled up in my chair with my laptop (kinda like a book). I look forward to doing very little this weekend. Finally getting to wind down after Thanksgiving.

Hurray

Cold Day

It was darned cold this morning, only because I wasn't prepared. Standing and watching a track hoe doesn't offer many opportunities to keep warm, either. I had my warmest jacket on with the hood all buttoned down so only my face was showing. The track hoe driver had a nice heater in his cab - I was envious. We finished up our work today, though, so at least I won't have to go back out Friday.

Now, I am trying to decide what I want for dinner. I think I will eat light since last night I stuffed myself with sushi.

Catching up on the financial news today was not pretty. I am so frustrated with the how these big companies operate. They pay their ceo's and a few other employess insane amounts of money with golden parachutes, to boot, and now they need a bail out? How about they give some of their millions back to the company? It is rediculous. How about just giving all of us little folks some money. That would stimulate the hell out of the economy.