Sampling underway!

Standing water in a soybean field following a heavy downpour (Top picture). A sampling quadrat (Bottom picture).

Finally the golden rays of the sun were in full view and could be felt today following a few days of thunderstorms. It was good warm and breezy day to be out sampling. As expected following days of rain, some fields had waterlogged areas (see picture). Fortunately, most of the fields that I visited today were quite in good condition to be sampled.

The highlight of my day happened around high noon. I had just arrived at my 4th field site, and was walking into the field when I noticed an undesirable thumb-thick brown rope approximately 3 ft long, about 3.5 ft to my left among stubs of grass. Two thoughts crossed my mind simultaneously at that point: was this rope what I thought it was or was my mind playing tricks on me at high noon? Well, out of curiosity I turned and faced it. Lo and behold the rope turned out to be what I thought it was...one of my most dreaded creatures...a SNAKE! We both froze for a moment waiting to see which one of us would blink first. Of course I lost (On this day I was not keen on finding out if it blinked or not. I'm told snakes don't have eyelids. In any case I was not ready to confirm that on a LIVE one!). I took a few steps backwards, but all it moved was its head. I tried to snap a few pictures of it, but my camera phone wasn't that powerful enough to zoom in for good one. Anyway, I let it be and went about my business. When I was done I took a different route to the vehicle for fear of running into it again.

Which brings me to this: I believe it is a good idea to were long pants and closed shoes for protection when entering field sites that are about knee-high. A stitch in time...so to speak! You never know what may be lurking in there.