Ah, well, summer was nice.

Apparently, I should not have gloated quite so much about our luscious weather lately; we had a sudden switch this afternoon. Very quick - from hot and sunny to ripping wind and rainy, in the space of about 10 minutes. Remember when Ernie would sing in the bathtub? Well, today's field song was

Rubber jacket, you're the one
You make field work so much fun
Rubber jacket, I'm awfully fond of youuuuuuu
(boop, boop, boo-doo be-doop)

Due to an unfortunate zipper event, Heidi was forced to alter this song:

Rubber jacket, I hate you
You crapped out and it's only week two
Rubber jacket, I'm awfully mad at youuuuuuu

So, we were all layered up for water sampling on an Arctic lake in a hurricane: wool toques, neck warmers, fleece, rubber jacket, gloves... and somehow between finishing our sampling and getting off the chopper back at camp, it warmed up again. We looked rather foolish as we headed for our tent in the camp's 20C with all of our woollies on!

We did have one other small field crisis today: the bag of snacks somehow got left behind. By 5:30, we were running out of juice. Kathryn got stalled with the anchor 1/2 way back in the boat... back on shore, Heidi (face down in the tundra) suddenly asked, "Can you eat lichen?"
(the answer: yes; but it is particularly tasteless. We picture the poor caribou, saying to themselves, "Crispy. That's all it is: crisp. No matter how much it rains on this freakin' tundra, this stuff is always crispy.")

Meanwhile our medic, Donovan, became very concerned by his falling ratings on the HotOrNot website – it was time to update his photo. Well, naturally we offered to have a photo shoot! Donovan flew into a bit of a panic: “oh, I’ve not done my hair for days!” but showed up an hour later, coiffed, and with a suitcase of wardrobe options in tow. “I loves having my picture taken!” Apparently one of the new photos is now up to an 8.7 rating, with 56 votes cast so far. We await further results with baited breath…