Adventures Since My Last Babblefest

I must say, it has been a rather busy time since my last visit here.

The past Monday turned out pretty much as we expected it would; a nasty, rainy day. After a 2 hour delay we went out to give it a go. Spent 3 hours putting up silt fence before calling it quits out there for the day. As an FYI, silt fencing is that short orange barricade/wall you can see in some of the photos. It basically serves to prevent erosion. For our purposes, it keeps the infertile sand we are digging up from creeping any farther into the farmer's fields than it absolutely has to.

Some of us spent the rest of the afternoon helping out with various tasks that could be done in the hotel. For my part, I helped sort, count, and weigh FCR (fire-cracked rock). We're handling FCR differently here than has been done in previous projects I've worked on. It is not being collected and sent back to the lab. Largely because there is just tooooo much of it. The data is being collected, but the artifacts themselves are being left at the site as part of the backfill.

That evening some of got together in Marlon's room for "Mojito Monday." Here is Chris, our crew chief, entertaining us with a bunch of songs I've never heard before. All in all, though, it was a good performance. :)

The guy to the left in the next photo is Marlon, our host for the night (and who makes killer mojitos by the way!). That's Leon to the right.

Marlon comes to us from Nicaragua. How he ended up here in Indiana, I haven't a clue. Anywho, he's a great guy to work with. And talented too. He also played for us Monday. His specialty is Nicaraguan folk songs. Apparently, he has recorded a couple of CDs and has played live in concert and on NPR. After listening to him perform I have to wonder why he doesn't pursue a music career full-time. He's certainly talented enough to do well.

Tuesday was much more productive. And it should have been since we worked from sun-up to sun-down. Dee and I drew up the profiles for the unit we were working on (after first bailing out the 8 inches or so of water that was in the unit). Then we went to work on the next 1x1 in line.

Wednesday was a short day since we all wanted to start the holiday weekend early. Several of us have a long way to drive to get home and didn't want to stay any longer than necessary. We were out of there by noon (local time - which is 1:00pm Real Time). By that point we (being Dee and myself) were well into the new unit. We should have that wrapped up before the next full workday is over.

Thursday was Thanksgiving of course. Spent the day with family having a good time and pigging out as usual. Also used that time together to celebrate my grand-niece Madison's 10th birthday.

Friday and Saturday were spent making the drive back to Fort Wayne and getting caught up on things after having been away for 3 weeks. Then, too, I had to get ready for being away for a while again. Don't expect to be home again until Christmas. Anywho, nothing special to say about all that. Pretty boring stuff. Until late Staurday afternoon anyways.

Thought I'd go out and run a few errands then, only to find out I had a flat tire. Bummer. So, I swapped it out for the spare and went shopping for a new tire. Problem was, it wasn't the tire that was bad; it was the wheel itself. The rim had gotten bent in a couple of places (probably the result of way too many pot holes in our Fort Wayne streets, I'm thinking!) and the tire wouldn't hold air anymore. To complicate the issue it was, by then, too late in the day to buy a new wheel anywhere in town. All the suppliers were closed. So, I had to resign myself to the fact that I'd be driving back to Tell City on my spare. Not something I was too enthused about.

Sunday ...

Opted to leave earlier in the day than I had originally planned in case there were any problems due to my tire situation. (There weren't. I got to Tell City just fine.) But its just as well that I left when I did. This is what my apartment complex looked like as I was leaving ...

While that kind of stuff might be pretty to look at (which it actually is), its another thing to have to drive in it!

[Those last 3 images WERE taken in color. Honestly! That just goes to show you what the weather conditions were like.]

And when are people going to learn that you have to drive differently in Winter conditions than you do in the Summer?! I counted 8 accidents along the highway within the first 50 miles of the trip today. And 4 of them were even before I had gotten out of Fort Wayne. Geez!

Thankfully, conditions improved as I got further south. Heres a shot of Tell City taken from the parking lot of our hotel.

Rain, not snow, and its 10 degrees warmer. Much better. At least for today anyways.

Forecast is calling for a mix of rain & snow all day tomorrow. That may keep us out of the field for a day or two. Not necessarily a bad thing. That would give me the chance to get my tire replaced without eating into my weekend. The sooner I'm fully road-worthy, the better. I have places to go!!! :D

Project In Full Swing

Everything has finally come together so now we are at work full time on the new project.

We are working along a stretch of dirt road that parallels the Ohio River. This is part of the route that will be taken by a new water line that will extend for many miles. We are only concerned about a short chunk of that route; a little over a mile or so of it. Within that area we have to excavate around 30 1x4-meter tenches and another 130 1x1-meter units down to a maximum depth of 1.3 meters. So far we have 4 trenches and 2 units started, but none finished. It is quite doubtful that we will have all of these done by Christmas as the current schedule calls for.

Anywho ... here is a shot of a small portion of the dirt road along which we are working.

And here is part of the crew hard at work in the trenches.

Haven't really taken many photos of the job so far but we are going to be here a while so lots of time for more as the work progresses.

And, of course, it hasn't all been just work. Some of us took a short road trip to Ferdinand, IN last Saturday. They were having a smallish German Festival and Christmas craft show there. We didn't stick around too late so missed more of the live festival stuff but did check out all the craft booths. We also took a little tour of the St Benedict Monastery which was hosting part of the activities. What a huge place that is!

Moving Along Now

For all intensive purposes we finished up with the cemetery on schedule. A couple of the guys were to go back this week for some last minute details and to wrap things up but I'm not involved with that. I've moved on.

I'm now sitting in Tell City, Indiana waiting for a new project to begin. It would have started today except for the rain which kept us out of the field. Maybe tomorrow. Regardless, I'm still getting paid for the waiting. :D

What we'll be working on (once we get started) will be a mile-long stretch of road along which a new water line is to placed. Of course, this line is going right through multiple prehistoric sites. We are being tasked with going in and removing all artifacts, and collecting other relevent data, prior to its destruction by the the water line placement. We are supposed to be done by Christmas but, given the weather at this time of year, that probably won't happen. In that case, the project will likely be shut down until spring. Either way, I'll need to have a new gig lined up to start right around the holiday season. Ideally it will be somewhere further south but a return to Fort Wayne is always a possibility. I've already started looking at the options a bit.

But for the duration southern Indiana will keep me busy. Except for plans already made, I'll most likely be staying here over the weekends as well. The company I'm working for will pay for weekend lodging and provide per diem so why not take advantage of it. Saves driving time, wear and tear on the car, and puts a little more cash in my pocket.

I'll be back once this job actually gets going.

The latest ...

Our cemetery project is now in its final week. We have 2 days left with 2 burials to finish. We do have a reduced crew now but maybe we can still get done on schedule. Hopefully.

It may be tricky though. I've just finished the 4th day of work on my assigned burial and it is far from done. Its proving to be rather confusing. I've already expanded the unit twice trying to locate the actual burial and will have to do that for the third time again tomorrow. There is evidence that there once was a burial there but we just can't define its exact location, let alone find the burial itself. Its become rather frustrating.

Anywho, I did get a few photos that I can pass along after all. Permission was given to take pictures from a distance so at least I can share enough to show how the overall site has changed since we first started here. Here is what the cemetery looks like presently.

Looks quite a bit different from the last images I posted.

We are working in the tents you see primarily because of privacy concerns. The excavation of the burials is not open to public viewing. But they also helped us a great deal last week when it was cold and windy.

Also, the local Greenwood newspaper printed an article about the project last week. I can't post a link to the actual article because a subscription is required but the photos they took are available online for free. You can see some of what we are doing inside the tents by going to these images ... Image 1 ... Image 2 .

So that is the current state of affairs; Trying to get this project wrapped up in the next 2 days.

As far as I know presently, I'm off to Santa Claus next week. That project was supposed to have begun today but was postponed until Monday. Still waiting for confirmation on that though. If it should get moved back again, well, I suppose I'll be back working in Fort Wayne for the duration. Not necessarily a bad thing.