why working in a public park is fun.

Little kid questions of the week (both addressed to Carrie):

Small child: "Do you guys ever find anything besides bones in there?"
Carrie: "Like what?"
Small child: "Like weapons??"

I'm sure the kid meant spearheads, but my mind went instantly to a giant ground sloth holding a rifle.

Small child: "Why do they save all the dirt?"
Carrie: "We will look through it for microfossils."
Small child: "Microfossils... ohhhh like ancient germs??"

Now that one, I suppose, depends on what you consider a germ... We do get asphalt-eating bacteria, after all...

One of the most frequent questions we get from park visitors is, "what do you do when it rains?"

clearly, you SMILE ADORABLY like laura

Well, as we've had to do more than once recently, we.... go inside. Despite our dirt-covered faces and tar-stained jeans, we are CIVILIZED after all (although to be fair, if it's only raining a little, and we've got a decent tarp rigged up, at least half the staff will opt to stay outdoors: "it smells nice!").

But this is California: we don't really have weather.

this photo was taken in february; they're smiling because it's 80 degrees out. sorry, everywhere else.

People also ask which is better: digging in the cold, or digging in the heat. After several years of excavatrix-ing, I've become quite the connoisseur of digging conditions. Colder days have their advantages -- the asphalt "freezes" to the point that it chips off in these nice ovoid fragments -- conchoidal fractures, as in flint -- and you can get rid of big chunks of sterile dirt at one time.

And sometimes you find neat stuff in between the fractured pieces:

imprint of an insect wing, photo by the awesome carrie howard

SO MANY MILLIPEDES........

However, cold days mean no detail work -- no dental picking! Which means no working on awesome stuff like these two articulated camel vertebrae (still from Clyde, our camel in 5B):

Cold days, for me, also mean I'm at least 83% more likely to hit my left thumb with my own hammer before 9:30am. But I'm weird.

Warmer days, like I said, mean detail work:

i'm not sure what insect or which part this is, but it's neat

more amazing photos by Carrie

Termite gnaw marks from the Pleistocene -- very cool. The keen-eyed excavator that got them out intact -- possibly cooler (I bet it was Carrie -- apparently this is We Love Carrie week).

So, warm days = melty asphalt and pretty fossils. However, warm days eventually turn into hot days, which eventually turn into oh-my-god-i'm-dying-get-me-an-iced-tea. We've got another 2 months until then, though.

Another keen-eyed excavator (your truly, to tell the truth) spotted a new instance of the family Suidae at Rancho La Brea....

yes, it's a pot-bellied pig. no, it's not george clooney's. damn.

but, alas, not exactly Pleistocene in age...