Hurts so good

Thank you, John Cougar Mellencamp.
Despite the gray, misty weather, I have actually been working outside the last 2 days and it makes me very happy. It's not archaeology, but it's still digging and my back and shoulders hurt in a way they haven't hurt in months. I'm helping dig out karst features to see if they might be caves. If they're caves, then we'll try and see if there are endangered insects in them. If there are, well, I guess Williamson County will have to do some form of mitigation if they want the road widened.
Tina and I were partners today, trying to make headway in a pretty deep feature. I'd say we're about 8 feet below ground, making our way down on big slabs of limestone bedrock. The opening to the actual work space was so narrow that you had to have your body sideways while bending down. Then, you had just about enough room under those rocks to lie on your side or lean forward on your knees (like some kind of yoga move). So the clearing of dirt was pretty slow. Near the end of the day, however, Tini realized that one of the huge rocks forming the narrow crevice was loose. I had assumed it was part of the bedrock. So she wiggled it around and got it loose enough to try and get it out. But it was too unwieldy. So we went after it with a small sledgehammer/mallet and a small rockbar, and smacked 3 huge chunks off the main boulder. What was left was still at least a foot wide and a foot thick, and weighed at least 100 pounds. We hauled it up using a rope and all the strength we had left.
Tomorrow, I get to go back and keep working in there, with a lot more room to maneuver. I'll also be taking my camera.
Oh yeah, I also smashed my finger yesterday and peeled off a big chunk of skin. It's really gross looking!

Why I am so tired.

This week, I've been waking up around 5:45 to do a burn lane survey at Bastrop State Park. Basically, there's a 10-foot wide corridor along most of the property lines that is going to be impacted. I don't know if they're going to do a controlled burn as a firebreak, or maybe berm up some dirt, I just know they're calling it a burn lane survey. I also know that some of the area we walked through today had already been subjected to a controlled burn, and that we found a couple of sites in this area. This was a plus because all of the snaggy, thorny underbrush was gone. However, the burning messed up the upper 20 centimeters of the site and made all of the thermally fractured rock fragments we found suspect.
This job is a challenge because Texas State Parks are underfunded. So we're driving to and from the project area every day, which is 90+ minutes round-trip. We leave early to beat the rush hour traffic (both ways). We're trying to haul ass because it's a really tight budget, but we keep finding sites. This is, of course, the point of the job. However, most of these sites have been sparse artifact recovery over large areas at some depth. Even in nice sand, it takes a while to dig and screen a 30cm diameter hole that's a meter deep.
So I've been waking up early to walk a lot, then dig and screen really deep holes. Finding a dart point (albeit a rather ugly Kent point, which is so ugly there are no photos of it online) was a nice reward today, as it was the first projectile point I've ever found in a shovel test.

Goodbye Junction

So tomorrow is the last day of the data recovery here in Junction. The last couple of weeks have been a challenge due to weird stratigraphy, strange weather, and tough dirt. There hasn't been the awesome finds that make the digs feel a little better, but we moved a hell of a lot of dirt.
Today was supposed to be warm and sunny, but it started out cool and wet. Then it rained pretty steady. Then it got sunny briefly and hot. Then it rained again and was really windy for like 15 minutes. Then it cleared up and was sunny and cool for the rest of the day.
On Tuesday we went for a hike after work, at South Llano River State Park.
The hike was nice, but we ended up underestimating how long the loop was, and by the time we finished it was dusk and the temperature was dropping and we were starving. Saw some cool birds, an armadillo, and a large cat track (mountain lion or bobcat). I realized that in my 13+ years of living in Texas, I've been to 3 State Parks: Garner, Lost Maples and now South Llano. Even worse is that the other two were in my first year of living here. I need to change that, maybe buy a parks pass or something.
Next time I post, I promise to talk about tektites.