Timothy

I am a retired field environmental professional that used what we now call journaling throughout my career to document what I found in the field.   I worked a great deal on mine land reclamation, hazardous waste clean up and nuclear waste clean up.   Thus, most of those journaling books are now in part of legal case files and project record archives and thus out of my reach.   All beginning journal keepers should note that, although thousand of photographs were taken of the sites I worked on, it was always my journal pages, sketches, and watercolors that ended up on the big screen in front of the jury---go figure.  I am now excited to start my personal nature journal to document the many wonders of my new home's backyard which is on a big water body called an Resaca (look it up, it not a river or a lake). As an old field guy I have one plea; please use alpha-numeric dating for your dates (example: 23OCT2017), and military time (1704H = 5:04 pm) on all your enters.  All other date/time notations can lead to multiple interpretations of when the notations were made.  This, in turn, leads to the notations, sketches, watercolors, etc. being thrown out of any data set or evidence file (scientific or legal).   It is so heart breaking to see good work rendered unusable for such a silly reason.   Remember, you can never predict when what you document will become important to society.