#God tho i do miss being a shovel monkey too

[thaylepo]

If you can, try to set up your screens/sifts, or any places you may be standing for a prolonged time, in shade. It's not always possible, but good when you can. Have a water bottle to drink from ON YOU during stationary tasks when your hands are somewhat more free to drink from it.

Cover your head. Cover it with something other than a hardhat if you are being made to wear one. Put your hair up if it's long and have a durag or bandana to cover your head and neck. It will get sweaty and gross, but that will feel glorious when you have a minute to briefy let it down and shake into the wind like a wet dog. Unless it's swamp-humid out, but cover your head and neck regardless.

Let yourself slow down and rest more frequently and drink water more frequently as the day goes on. Short frequent rests while you're still feeling ok will replenish you better over the long term than resting longer only when you become so tired or hot you have to stop. Time yourself every twenty min or every level mark or however suits you, and take just a minute or two to drink water and pre-fill out paperwork. There is always paperwork to pre-fill out. Always.

One survey trip many years ago we did an accidental experiment with two teams: last half of the afternoon, we each dug two 1.5 meter deep test pits to record soil stratigraphy at points along the top of the river embankment. My team was me and another equally small and slight woman. The other team was two big guys who also played rugby. (I went to school with all three of them lol).

Since only one person can shovel in a 1x1 meter hole at a time, our team decided we'd switch off every ten minutes even if we weren't tired, and that way we'd both do a fairly equal amount of work. We set a timer, did that, and then finished up drawing our soil profiles.

The other team, the big guys, just dug one at a time until they had to stop before switching. The first hole, we finished only a bit before them. The second hole, we finished like an hour before they did and had time to take a cozy lil snooze in our nice cool shaded pit while we waited. Both times, the guys finished sweaty and exhausted, while we finished tired but still with plenty of energy. The four of us sat down for a snack (us still in our Triumph Hole) and agreed we'd made a discovery that day lol.

On that note, sifted dirt piles can be lovely cool places to take a brief 30 second lie-down in.... depending on the type of dirt. Soft moist freshly screened silt? Muy bueno. Lots of rocks dumped in? Less bueno. Your supervisor may be riding your ass for speed on a crm dig, but if you've just moved an entire 4ft sift pile by yourself with a shovel, it's your god damned given right to flop into that soft cool freshly dug dirt to cool off for half a minute. When they're not looking. Kick away your body imprint after, leave no trace XD

(When I worked in Jordan, we had a shade tent erected and since it was a dig with students and volunteers, you were free to go sit in the shade whenever and however you needed. We had a firepit nearby with a kettle for tea. You wouldn't think a lil shot glass of hot sweet black tea is good when you are already hot and sweaty, but it's goddamn revitalizing. One shot glass mind you, sip it down, drink regular water, let yourself cool off, and in the dry heat it's like magic. We also had these sweet clay water jugs called ibriqs that had salt baked into the clay to create a condensation cooling effect: leave them in the sun, and the water inside is crisp and cold. They're heavy as hell tho so I brought one big one for my whole team to replenish their water bottles with nice cool jug water XD. The dig site was close to the airport highway, so someone would always pop out to buy watermelon from a stand along the highway. That dig was like a luxury tour, we got to stay at a small college campus dorm in a semi-rural neighbourhood on the south edge of the city, with showers! And toilets! No flush tho. We had beds! Our meals were prepared in a cafeteria from local ingredients! A lady was hired to clean our bathroom once a week! We washed our pottery daily in a beautiful shaded cedar lined pathway. Archaeologists would spend five months out in tents on others digs and finish the season volunteering at this one as a well-deserved treat lol. It was an expensive field school tho but if you got funding to go, hoo baby it was the BEST. I've been on both sides and this was the nicest dig with the nicest core staff and the fewest entitled assholes. It had hella funding behind it but the money was well allocated.

Uh. Yeah. Adhd out!

hi reid! i was wondering if you had any tips for staying cool (and sane) on digs in the heat. i have an opportunity to do an excavation this summer but the heat often goes about 95f. as always i ♡ your blog

Hi there,

There's some advice from old posts in my advice master list—go and check that out! My favorite hack is to freeze a bottle(s) of Gatorade and then drink it as it melts throughout the day. BUT!!! If you do that, YOU HAVE TO TAKE A SIP OUT OF THE BOTTLE BEFORE YOU FREEZE IT OTHERWISE IT WILL EXPLODE.

However, the two most important things you can do for yourself are 1) learning the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke, and 2) advocating for yourself (and others) should you begin to experience them.

As always, feel free to chime in with their own tips and tricks. -Reid