Another condensed blog post, haha.

I love this senior project. Just being able to do fun stuff in such an amazing place (what with all the flowers and the wonderfully fresh air). Every day, I  think to myself about how I totally hit the jackpot when it comes to senior projects. Everyone's just so nice here, too, it's like one big happy family.

Thursday, Day 7

After going to the zoo on Wednesday, I arrived at the BBG ready to do some serious seed sorting, and got to work on the last of the Limnanthes. Erin had a new bar of hazelnut chocolate. It was SO good; I'm definitely going to seek out and buy some for myself.

Ed wasn't in today, and Erin had to leave at 1:00. So she gave me her key to the seed bank vault and basically left me in charge of the lab area. I mean, Kris (the lady who owns the house) and Margaret were in the building at various times, so it's not like I was all by myself, but of the people who work in the lab area, I was the last one to leave, so I was responsible for turning off the lights, turning the thermostat down to 60, and putting the seeds I was working with back in the vault and locking it up. So yeah, it was nice that I could be trusted to work without supervision by either of my mentors, seeing as I'm just a lowly high school volunteer and something as simple as me forgetting to close the vault door could be catastrophic for the seed bank.

Anyway, after I finished counting the Limnanthes, I read parts of an interesting seed book I found on one of the shelves, then I reveled in my responsibility for a few minutes before I headed home.

Also, Erin gave me some homework! It's a bunch of readings on seed banking, and we might have a mini symposium before I leave.

Friday, Day 8

Today, Erin wasn't in, but Ed was. In the morning, I proofed the last of the census data which I had entered into the computer against my actual written copies. While Ed patiently walked me through Excel (I never realized how much I fail at using it), and we had an enlightening discussion on hyenas and their incredible immune systems. It's really quite fascinating stuff.

Then, in the afternoon, I was given the monumental task of putting all that data into perspective. Basically, I got to create (on my own) an Excel spreadsheet with all the living plant data from the germination trials for both Horticulture and Conservation, so we could see how well the germination trial actually turned out. Again, I'm happy I got to design something like this by myself, but I have to admit I felt a little overwhelmed when I was looking through all the data: I really wasn't sure how I was going to condense everything. Ed said my sheet turned out well, though, so I'm pretty content.

Monday, Day 9

So today, Erin brought up a big box of problem seeds from the vault for us to work on. Problem seeds, as their name implies, are basically the dregs of the seed bank vault. They're seeds that might have been in there since the dawn of time, that is, the first days of the seed bank (the early '80s!), seeds that have somehow gotten separated from their partner packages or accession groups, seeds that have pretty much no identifying information. Basically, seeds that nobody knows what to do about, so they languish in the freezer in the vault. And that's what I was working on today.

Erin was washing dishes, using alcohol to get the ink off the plastic (that stuff practically burns your nose), so I packed up my seed cleaning/packaging gear, moved to her office and worked there. While I worked, I listened to music streaming from allclassical.org. I have to say, this week's guest on The Score wrote some pretty impressive stuff. I think I'll have to go see Prince of Persia just for the music.

Tuesday, Day 10

More dish washing, and more problem seed work. I was introduced to Mary, who volunteers here on occasion. She weighed some Physaria didymocarpa while I counted seeds in Erin's office. Later on, her fiance Ernie swung by to pick her up, and regaled us with tales from his job as a census worker.

I learned several new things about the seed bank vault today, since some guys came in to analyze the property value of the BBG. One, it's made of 8 inch thick reinforced concrete, and two, the humidity in the vault is kept between 15 and 20 at all times - giving it a lower humidity than that of the Sahara Desert! Which is why you shouldn't stay in the vault too long - besides being cold, the low humidity isn't good for you. Erin was down there for some extended periods of time today while digging around for problem seeds, and it was starting to negatively affect her lungs.

Oh, man. I'll edit this post when I'm not exhausted.

EDIT: Well, there you go! :)