Creek Monitoring

I did the creek monitoring with my partner this weekend. This was my second time – but it’s still exciting. But, boy was it cold!

We met at his house to calibrate the Hanna meter, then drove over to the collection site in his truck. He was very surprised to see the creek was almost completely iced over – apparently that’s not normal! There was enough of a hole to dip out a bucket of water, though = with some very interesting body contortions involved, I must say: trying not to fall thru, and yet still have the leverage to lift a 5-gallon bucket of water up an over the ice.

Getting the three vials of sample water for the dissolved oxygen tests was also a challenge as the water was freezing solid in the bucket as we watched. My partner is the gentlemanly sort who always insists on being the one to immerse his hands in the bucket for that test. I’m selfish enough to allow that.

We had our air thermometer hanging out on the truck, but that was rather pointless as the darned thing doesn’t even register that low a temperature. We had to trust his truck’s on-board thermometer, which gave us a reading of 14 degrees Fahrenheit. The water temperature gauge read 0 degrees Celsius.

Once we got the essential tests done, we packed everything up and went back to his garage to complete the testing. Radiant Floor Heating is so nice!