Day 2, Session I

Dear Readers,

Matt Photoshopped in the dandy red grid. Would that he could do it in real life.. Nor did he mention the stifling humidity. He notes 'there were some problems...quickly noted and corrected.' He is being modest, for it was he who pointed out that parallel lines are not supposed to cross. Then, having helped re-lay the lines, he left. Not long after, we discovered the newly relaid grid had many too many quirks; it's supposed to be nice 1-meter squares. We know that where Matt and I were working the ground slopes, so some distortion is to be expected, but it is not consistent and some of the squares are off by 8 centimeters on one side. It seems like it should be easy to put down measuring tapes and stick nails in every meter. It may have been easy on the flat part, north of the shed.

We put the tarp up in shelter mode before lunch, and it kept the rain away for over an hour. The wind came up, cool and dry, the first dry air I have felt in several days. All the trees started showing the backs of their leaves, with loud thunder. My group were still trying to get the grid to behave when Dick sent everyone under shelter. The wind picked up. The thunder got closer and we began to see lightning. People held onto the leading edge of the tarp until Dick decided the wind was going to ruin the tarp and we would get wet anyway. He sent us to the cars, which are parked across the street by permission of the big insurance company (and on top of the Smyth site). For several more minutes, the rain still held off, but the wind and the pyrotechnics were impressive. Several of us piled into the back of the Beast (a capped pickup truck with room in the cab for six, acquired from the Department of Transportation. It has 2 gas tanks and weighs 9000 pounds unladen. Very useful vehicle) and watched the lightning and then some _spectacular rain. Forty-five degree angle and little waves across the tarmac. It seemed to consider letting up and then came back just as hard. After more than an hour, Dick sent us home for the day. The visibility getting back to Concord was terrible and it continued raining till nearly five o'clock.

The soil cores are promising; it looks like the lawn has been there quite a while, and there seem to be undisturbed layers a few inches beneath the grass. I had really hoped to dig today and with half of the grid still sketchy I was discouraged and annoyed.