Sooo...it's been a while. And I still haven't posted my last day in Spain pic's. Bad, bad, bad...i know. I will update those photos soon enough. It has been a bit crazy since I've been back. I've been pretty much in the field in Hill Country for March, a bit of April, and then back on the big bad "project." That's where I'm at right now. Back in Oklahoma, almost three years to the date of when we started this crazy project. Three years!!
I was so used to do doing "normal" archaeology for the past two months and then I'm back to the absurdity that is "the project." In the Hill Country, we knew where had to go via a phone call or an email from our land agent, got in our trucks and traveled to those areas, and then we surveyed. Just like that. No 15-30 min meetings going over where we were going, what we were doing, with an exhausting discussion on safety issues that everybody knows how to mitigate with a useless middle man who usually doesn't know or doesn't even care to inform himself of the project. Plus I was luckily enough to work on a section of the Hill Country project that had fantastic archaeology. One site had 20 projectile points scattered on the ground surface with countless (really, countless) stone tools. And burned rock middens on two other sites!! I love me some burned rock middens! Which are basically, for those who don't know, hearth features that have been extensively used through time creating a "midden" or concentration of rock and charcoal. Plus the surveying in the Hill Country is beautiful. Wide open skies, usually easy terrain with manageable vegetation, and awesome creeks and rivers. Even when it gets bad its good. But alas, I then get pulled back into the "project."
First of all, I went back to East Texas. Which if fine since I usually get to see my girl, JP in Lufkin, but I missed her this time around. The survey wasn't difficult and we did some BHT (backhoe trenching), but the CF that the "project" is just keeps it from being efficient. But...overall, we try to make it fun as much as we can within the limitations and frustrations that we experience. You have to after a while. No point in being a debbie-downer about it. It is what it is. Like here in Oklahoma, right now. Yes, the usual BS creeps in. Last-minute work, frustrating communications, and borderline incompetence. Then I realize we have great overall survey areas, awesome field peeps to do the survey with, and fantastic weather thus far. Even if it was crappy survey areas (i.e. Blowmont, aka Beaumont), a socially inept and inexperienced field crew, and freaking extreme weather....I still wouldn't be doing anything else. You make the most of what you have. Whining and complaining about some our realities in the field just brings the rest of the group down. It's a lot better to make fun of it and laugh about the absurdity (Safety up, F*ckTards!) than to dwell on a project's soul crushing intent. So I will vent every once in a while. But the truth is I have it good. And I'm grateful I get to do a job that I still love. In spite of the some of the BS.
