elanya

Things are great!

So far, we have dug on 4 properties - Yellowbird, which has some material on an old property but a lot of disturbance in the accessible areas (4 shovel tests only); The Methodist House, where we had one day... really half a day... to dig, and managed to get 6 tests in), the Old Barry House ,in the old old part of town, around an exposed foundation, up into a gravel yard with lots and lost of chickens and some run down trucks (12 shovel tests), and Java House - another old house currently under historic-minded renovations (6 pits on two short transects where we could find bare yard, the second leading to where they found an old outdoor toilet (in local parlance ;) they have since filled in).

So that's a total of 28 tests! I know some of you who do CRM are probably laughing at such a poor turnover of tests for two people over 8 days of work but hey, we're actually finding stuff! Lots of stuff @_@ Lots of small things that require careful screen sorting - there is *Always* another fish bone, for instance! In addition to the piles of your typical historic small finds (glass, ceramics, bones... not as many pipe stems as you might expect...), we've found a handful of cool more unique things. The first (only @_@) day at the methodist House (MDH, as we call it around here), we found a cool little bone..... thing. It is clearly meant to be held, but its purpose remains enigmatic!

We found a cool pewter broach at the Old Barry House (OBH).... of course, it is in four pieces, but whatcha gonna do? Java House (JVH - do you see a trend here?) was especially kind, and we uncovered an iron, sans handle, the bone handle to some kind of implement, possibly a whisk (two pieces), and a fork! We've also got a handful of cool buttons, though none quite as snazzy as the kissing birds from last year.

In addition to digging the tests, we've also been keeping up with cleaning the artifacts (well, mostly... I think we are only 2 bags behind, just ognore that the last one probably has a hundred fish bones in it -_-), and mapping the sites. It is a fair amount of work, I promise! We're hoping to get one more in, which gives us time to dig, clean and log artifacts, and pack everything up before leaving on Saturday.

Of course, we are in a nice little property, right on the harbour, with a private dock home to probably a dozen different species of fish and other marine life, so there has been some evening swims, the lightning and star gazing, and the three evenings we got to watch the bermuda fire worm bioluminescent mating ritual :D

So that's basically what Catherine and I have been up to... now it is time for BBQ burgers and a dark and stormy. Or, since they have no dark rum and I'm making due with gold, an overcast and windy.

If anyone wants more info... I'll catch you in the morning :)

Crazy what all happens in a week away!  I got some good news, but I also got turned down for a grant (NSF) because the guy running it is being a dick >:(  Boo-urns!

On the upside, this week in Opposite World (that's where I tent all ween and come home to civilization on the weekends, you see), I saw:
deer
fox
frolicking baby cows
no frolicking older cows
wild turkey (animal not liquor)
a hawk catching a snake
toads
lizards
a very sad and lonely Barbados ('Barbie') sheep
some vultures and buzzards
various song birds
...probably more that I can't remember.

I also dug some perfectly square holds very slowly, and got to play in the dirt, looking for pieces of razor sharp rock by mashing my hands in to mud.  Now I am very tired.  Six more weeks!


...anyone want to beta a STXI Romulan fic for me?

Rural peasants represent the true heart of colonial America?

Piss off with that crap :p

Oh and you too, Glassie, with your idolization of craftsmen.

*shakes fist*

Dr. Waters asked me if I'd like to come back and do Buttermilk again this year. I could use the money, that's for sure!

But then I'd need to find some one or some place to take Jola for at least the weeks (home on weekends) when I'd be gone, and it is a 7 week season. Plus, even if it ends in July, I am probably going to need time to get my own shit together... but it will be good for me to have already been in the field that summer also, so I'm not all rusty and confused :p

Well, I'm going to e-mail and check the dates with him at least. TBH, I'm happy enough that he asked me back :) I must have half a clue what i am doing after all :V

I have to admit, I continue to be intimidated by some of the people I'm deaing with for my dissertation research. I jokes about the German movie producer (still no word from him!) but there are other scary names on the list.

But they've been encouraging and enthusiastic to date, so hooray?

Although I haven't gotten much form my follow up letters.... But that's more to read and think about.

Its infections. I keep wanting to make posts title 'The day I did X'. Today would be 'The Day I e-mailed a German movie producer and asked if I could dig holes in his lawn.'

Today I finally got off my kiester and e-mailed Harbour Island property owners about permission to investigate their properties. I sent out about 25 e-mails, for properties I thought had potential and that i could find contact info for. I have had about 5 'yes I'm interested' or more enthusiastic replies already. One guy called me on the phone, which I was not expecting when I woke up out of my nap when the phone rang :V Still he owns 2 and a half places I'd like to look at, so score! Another guy just responded to my intro letter by saying "No problem!" I think I'll ask him if he wants more info, although he didn't specifically ask for it. His blanket acceptance confuses me!

I realize that I'm most likely to get any positive responses pretty quickly, but still, I'm feeling very encouraged. So far, most of the respondents are clustered in what i suspect will be a very productive area. So, score!

I also e-mailed some of the bahamas archaeology peeps to get things sorted there. they want me to have an advisor type person who's worked in the Bahamas before, and i'm getting that worked out now. So really I've spent half my day e-mailing for my dissertation and I feel very productive! i just have one more follow up e-mail to send, for now, and then I'm off to work on my August Writing stuff for the day. Hooray!

Still no response from the German movie producer. I'll let you know :V

Following slapperfairy's suggestions I'm going to start with an initial short letter. What I've got so far is this, which I would probably just send as an e-mail.

( Dear so-and-so... )

I've also now worked on the expanded info letter - broken down in to sections to make things a bit clearer, I think.

( Expanded info letter )

Lets pretend that you own an expensive property that you occasionally rent out to peeps for a week or so in the summer for tons of cash. What woulod you think of a letter like this? And how can I make it better?

( Dear so and so.... )

I find I am in a weird headspace after coming back from the field tonight. Last week was different, as I was kind of unexpectedly thrust into fun social things, whereas tonight i collected my puppy, came home, and have been a vegetable since. I haven't had dinner because I really have no fod here but can't be arsed to go nd get anything and don't want anything I could get through take out. I skimmed LJ, as I did last week, and saw a number of things of interest that I'd really like to respond to.

This weekend is going to be really different as I am already slotted to do a ton of gaming (err, different from last weekend, that is, not different form *usual* :p). If I had my druthers I'd like to see Hellboy II at some point as well, but I suspect it will have to wait until later. Wow, in retrospect, i think I am supposed to game pretty much all weekend. well, good thing I didn't have any other plans :p

...I don't feel like I am really up to communicating the state of my brain right now - maybe I ought to just go to bed and worry about it tomorrow.

I started to wrte something about my week but got all kinds of distracted. We'll see how it goes this time!

Living in a tent is going well - it helps that Texas is pretty dry. that said, it was supposed to rain this weekend, so we'll see how well my stuff fared. It's beet pretty warm at night (30 Celsius - I don't have my thermometer clock set to Fahrenheit so I can't help ya there).

There are two blocks open atm, both are just about a meter deep (90 some cm. I don't have my notes here for precision ;p). I'm in block A, moving around through various 1x1m units, some of which have nothing in them, some of which have some flakes and occasionally other exciting artifacts. We found a strange bifacially flaked tool of some sort, which we called the Chunky Monkey. It looks like it was made by a ten year old. The Block B peeps have found a couple of (mostly unfinished) Clovis points, and another biface suspected to be pre-clovis. We've also found a couple of what look like (fragments of) teensy blade cores of some sort, as well as some quite small flake blades (we in this case means me and Becca - we also excavated the Chunkey Monkey, but someone else had found it first. We didn't know what it was until it came out of the ground, though).

The site itself is actually an alluvial deposit - this is stuff washed in to a river (well creek, now) bed that has migrated around inside the little valley where we're digging. The deposit we're digging has been dated geologically (I don't know the specifics) to around 15000 BP, which means the stuff inside it should, theoretically, be of age with it. However, the clay tends to dry out and create deep crotovinas (sp) and vertic (verdic?) cracks, which lets stuff fall down in from later deposits. For example last week we also found an archaic point - whoops! This later material is generally found in a darker black soil or in association with crumbled limestone, so it is easy (well, easy-ish) to tell if your stuff is intrusive. We don't map the soils every level, but it is enough to see the changes in the site overall - as I said, it's pretty deep. And of course you do note all the important stuff in the paperwork and map all artifacts, and there are two photos of every unit per level.

All our dirt is wet screened with water recycled from a little pond nearby, which an be pretty messy. We 1/4" screen everything, and keep all artifacts. We also take a 25x25cm sample from the south west corner of every level and screen that through 1/8" mesh and keep everything save the soil for later testing.

So yes, very slowly digging a very deep hole! That's what I've been doing! I found out that we don't have to backfill, though which is a relief, because as I said, those pits are pretty deep.... and we washed away all our dirt! Apparently they'll bring in someone with a backhoe later to fill in this year's trench.

We have three breaks - one at 10:30 for snacks and hydration, one at noon for lunch and hydration, and one at 2:30 for hydration and, if peeps want, freezies (a.k.a. icy pops). People are on rotation for organizing these things, and I was on snack/lunch duty last week. Dinner is at or around 6:30, and peeps volunteer to cook. Last week we ate really well, and this week sounds promising as well! If they still need peeps i might volunteer to cook the last week.

There are showers, and I usually take mine after we end for the day around 4:30 and before dinner if I can. After that I might read for a bit, and hang out, etc. I usually go to my tent around 9. Then I'll write for a but and go to sleep between 9:30 and ten, to wake up shortly after six and start work at seven!

And that's my week :)