A Typical Tuesday: Data and Dancing

To start the day, Team Echinacea split into two groups – one group went to Loeffler Corner W and Yellow Orchid Hill to look for flowering echinacea heads, and the other went to Aanenson to collect demographic data on the flowering heads that they worked hard to find the previous day. Some of the Aanenson crew also got to communicate with the International Space Station as they learned to use the GPS unit for survey data.

(we didn’t actually communicate with the ISS but the base station in Alexandria is great for very accurate GPS points)

After lunch, Team Echinacea regrouped for a team data collection effort at P10, where the wind made it difficult to stand up straight. Squatting to measure the small echinacea planted in these plots was a little less difficult, but we still had to do some hat chasing throughout the afternoon. Despite the wind, we managed to find a record leaf measurement of 21cm tall.

(Let’s pretend like the pink flags don’t mean we couldn’t find a plant)

Daytona demonstrating an excellent measuring team effort

After measuring P10, the team headed to Andes where a deluxe team dinner of sweet potato tacos was to be served. But the tacos were only the beginning: Sophia made a pineapple upside down (right-side up?) cake that was sweet enough to fuel a Cotton Eyed Joe line dance, porch swinging, and hills exploring that followed. Legend has it that there’s even a bunker we could’ve gone to during the storms last night, but that’s yet to be discovered.