Day 4 (Moving day)

 Day 4

Just like every day we woke up and started the day at 6, I got up and got ready for my day. Today's morning chore was wiping down our tables and then bringing out the food for breakfast. I didn't feel like anything for the morning, so I set up the coffee for myself and others and then got to packing. I separated my clean clothes from the used clothes and put it into my laundry bag to keep things organized. I rolled up and put away my camp gear and enjoyed a small snack and coffee. the goal was to eat and have everything cleared out by 8am, and then right after we would complete our soil research for site1 (STOI). We tested for color, texture and then typed in all our info onto our spreadsheets.

First, we compared our soils color to the palates on "The Globe Program Editions Earth Colors" this gave us the color value, hue, and croma. In order to get the best results, I will stick to the resource I used to keep things consistent to the experiment I've been doing. Next up we had to check for the soils texture and see how well it could stretch. This experiment tells us how much clay is in the soil as a stronger connection shows how dense in clay it is and if its grainy it has no clay. Both of my test subjects had low loam meaning it holds together but not enough to stretch more than an inch. After we tested our soils and texture we got to play with some densiometer, the densiometers purpose is to test canopy cover (shade). the traditional denisometers use a compass like mirror with a grid and you count the cover in each square to calculate the shade. You then repeat this process in 4 different directions, north, east, south, west respectively and we would do this where we collected our shade and non-shaded samples. We also got a chance to play with CI-110 Plant Canopy Imager, which reminded me of a futuristic video game gun, it had a arm rest, a trigger and the lens was at the end of a barrel. The fun shape and screen made it a fun toy to play with. The results we got with the CI-110 were a little inconsistent though, it was reading more shade than was actually there and I had some ideas as to what it could have been. A) maybe the CI-110 wasn't calibrated correctly and that was why we were receiving off readings, or B) it was working correctly but it was counting the clouds as cover so maybe the CI-110 works better in clear days.

While working on our experiments the wildlife said their goodbyes. We saw a deer in the distance, but it scurried off after we locked eyes. while I was doing my texture and color testing, I saw Alvin and chipmunks (a few prairie dogs) circling the rv steps. I warned Jessica about the little guys and sure enough they started climbing the steps and one tried executing their plan "Operation Steal the Snacks", after his gallant break we thought it was all over, but the brave and powerful Monette let out a battle cry (she shrieked) and scared him off, mission failed. Poor Monette but it was something fun to see before we left our temp home.

We said our Goodbyes to STOI and hit the road for a 4-hour long car ride to Spokane and then to Harris Park in Oregon.

We arrived and my immediate thoughts were disappointment because it was family camp sight and those tend to be stricter on rules and have curfews. But to my surprise it was very nice, soft grass to place my tent over the bumpy pinecone terrain, a nice river right next to us where we can sit and hang out, and there are deer who are so used to people they come close enough to hang out. I set up my camp and got comfy because I was so confident that I wasn't on cooking duty... I was wrong. I saw that Lovey had covered me on my cooking shift, so I took her dishes duty from her to return the favor. For lunch Monette our personal Paula Deen made a delicious butter chicken, rice and flatbread with options for a garlic version. 

The day started off very rushed and rough, but the latter half of the day was so relaxing, and I love the new site. Today was a good day. After dinner we returned to camp and played card games and watched a movie around a campfire. While we were hanging out Aliyah our 7th member arrived, we invited her to hang out but she said she just wanted to relax. Totally understandable, none of hung out the first night but after talking we all started to click, give a day or two we'll break her in.