Thoughts from the Mom Van

Science needs to happen! Cover crops to cut and bag. Soil to core. Weed-free plots to make weed-free. Soybeans to count. Ah, studying sustainable agriculture. And for all this to happen our lab has hired a number of undergraduate research assistants this summer.

Which means I am now a supervisor.  (!)

I have never really served this role before, and had you told me that I’d be doing such even a few years ago, I’d be mighty surprised.  Myself and Master Chris, (lab manager and brilliant with any farm implement), work together to make science happen. “Champions of Science!” Co-worker Brian called us one day, and I’m kind of adopting the moniker for our lab team, in a way laughing how us Champions of Science spend our days ingloriously hand-weeding, counting soybeans, and identifying various grasses to species.  Not flashy work, but the quiet pumps behind the goal of making agriculture as sustainable and efficient as possible.  

It’s no small task to help coordinate the field work that needs to happen in a number of experiments, helping the grad students if they need it, partitioning the research assistants out to different projects.

When we first had out group of new assistants on board, and I was realizing that I would be Supervisor, I wasn’t sure at all how to deal with this. These first weeks were wearied confusion, as I wondered about authority and strictness. Should I be maintaining distance and mystery like a classic field boss? But it was too tiring moderating myself all the time, wondering what was the Correct and Conservative way to be.

And then I decided this was stupid. I was going to be myself.  (how trite, right, a Disney movie take-home message, but sometimes in this life—thanks to mores and all—surprisingly difficult)  I played loud beatsy happy music in the van while I drove people to and from the field site, pumping the brakes to the beat while approaching a stop sign. I teased people playfully and joined in jokes. I brought chocolate to share. I shared stories of embarrassment, hilarity, or heartbreak from my own life. And others did too.  Instead of quietly keeping my four-leaf clover finds to myself I victoriously crowed out and gave them to people, not caring if I seemed eccentric.

I enjoyed our field days so much more now, and I think our group did too.  People were bringing ice-cream and watermelon to share. We left the key in the van and listened to music while we worked in the field. We had long discussions about relationships and travel and personalities. “I love this lab!”, “I’m going to miss this so much when the season is over!” the research assistants shared. Our field work sometimes felt like hanging with a group of friends (just friends who I frequently reminded to be more efficient). I’m going to miss our group too.

Some funny faces in the field.

It makes me wonder about group dynamics. What makes for a “good group”? A certain pivotal member of good humor? An underlying subculture of spirit and pride? Everyone realizing that everyone else is participating with dedication and that becomes the norm?

But in all this fun I still am the one who paces about the field, suggesting ways to be more efficient (“you know, having one dedicated bag-labeler instead of everyone reaching for the sharpie might be a good way to go”) and encouraging people to drink plenty of water.  I also recommend people pee in the non-research corn field (“go sidedress the corn!”) rather than driving all the way back to the field house for bathrooms. “Just pretend you’re camping!” 

When I was a child, we had an imaginary town called Beanville, where we each had a play-family of Lego-people and farms and played commerce and trains and town meetings. Because our game moved through time, we decided to have Night and Day occur at the same time for all of our play-families.  Somehow, little Sandra became The Night Mayor (this word-play delighted us) and would strut around, arbitrarily calling out when it was day and night and we all had to scurry our little Lego people to bed or out to milk their little plastic cows in the morning.

And now, relating to time, I noticed that lunch-break would continue endlessly because nobody was mindful of the time. So I took upon myself the responsibility of getting everyone back into the van after lunch. A Lunch Mayor of sorts. “With great responsibility comes great power” one of the grad students pointed out to me. “Five minute warning!” I’d herd everybody.

For all these people we have both a big aggressive 4-wheel drive research truck and a white maternal van for going to and from the field, lugging soil probes, bags of samples, and people. “Which vehicle would you like to drive?” Lab Master Chris (my compatriot supervisor). “I don’t care,” I replied, “I can be a badass or a mom.”

And most of the time I am the mom, whizzing around in the van with music blasting and kids in the back singing and dancing. I joke about soccer practice and ballet lessons. The assistants told me, “we’ve decided we’re like a big family: you’re the mom, and Lab Master Chris is the dad.”  “What about our professor?” I asked (who is mostly writing and thinking about cover crops from his office, rather than playing in the field). “Oh, he’s the Wizard” they responded.  

There was no room in the mom-van, so Mom rode in the back.