*When you cant find the light, That got you through the cloudy days, When the stars aint shinin bright, You feel like you’ve lost you’re way, When those candle lights of home, Burn so very far away, Well you got to let your soul shine, Just like my daddy used to say.
He used to say soushine, Its better than sunshine, It’s better than moonshine, Damn sure better than rain. Hey now people don’t mind, We all get this way sometime, Gotta to let your soul shine, shine till the break of day.
Ahh I have loved this song for a long time – thanks Allman Brothers Band*
It won’t be very long until I get to see Rob! Sadly, Hooch will not be coming to Barrow with him!
I am so excited for the 4th of July festivities. I am not sure what to expect, but know that we will have a float and if I can get Rob in time we will be riding on the float!
Other than that I have seen vendors putting up food booths and **Pepe’s **is decorated to the max!
Pepes is my favorite eating spot in Barrow! They are all ready to celebrate 4th of July!
We went to the field and did some different work today. It was fun. We went to each plot and took water and plant samples. We used the Lysimeter to collect water from the ground. This water will be kept in the freezer until Paulo returns to Miami.
Paulo will use the water to see what organic (living), dissolved, carbons are in the water. The darker the water color probably the more carbon is in there. Where does this carbon come from? The organic dissolved carbon comes from decayed plant matter, animals and or animal feces (I know – yum, right?) in the form of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. The term dissolved means that these carbons from the living things are so small that they dissolve in water- much the same way powered lemon- aide mix dissolves in water.
What other carbon may be in the water? Inorganic carbons that may link together to form Carbon Dioxide, Methane. Is this making sense? All fitting together like a gigantic puzzle?... shooo...! There is a different method to trap these inorganic carbon based gases. In fact a guy from San Diego, Hiroki, is doing just that on the Arctic coast!
The Lysimeter is a long probe that attaches to a syringe. The syringe is used to suck the water out of the ground. Depending on how moist the area this could take minutes to hours or days.
Measures Soil Moisture - attached to a syringe to pull water out. Water will be frozen and taken back to Miami
The syringe pulls water out of the ground. It can take minutes or hours to fill the 10ml syringe depending how much water is in the ground.
The other new thing we did was to collect plant leaves. Paulo looked for dominant (the most popular) plants in his plot. Then he would take leaf samples from plants right outside of the plot. You don’t want to tamper with your plot – it is sacred ground. He handed them to me; I labeled what type they were. We only had 2 dominant plant types so far. They are Carex and Eriphorum. We brought them back to the lab and began drying them in an oven like machine. All the water needs to come out so that mold or bacteria won’t grow. When Paulo and Jose get back to Florida, Jose will grind them up. The leaf powder will be sent to another lab to analyze the nutrients that are found in the leaf.
Paulo is collecting Carex and Eriophorum leaf samples. He will dry them, take them to Miami and look for nutrients. Photo by Jose Luciani
It is fun to collect things (water and plants) from the field and is more meaningful to me, because it is hands-on in a way. I like to work with Sophie too, the Uni-Spec, but it is just a machine that shows graphs and charts.
Bird of the Day
These birds are all over Barrow. They are not afraid of humans and fly overhead often. I hear they get very territorial when they are watching their young.
It is fun to watch these sailing through the sky! Pomarine Jaeger Stercorarius pomarinus
Diversity from the **Top of the World******