I gathered a composite sample from 5 sites of varying distances from my house. All of them were roughly the same color, though there were some differences in the amount of rocks and roots in the individual samples. It was raining slightly while I collected these, so the soil was damp and there were many mosquitoes. As for the water collection, I wanted to spend the least possible amount of time in the field, because of the aforementioned mosquitoes. So I took my temperature and conductivity measurements (8.4 degrees Celsius and 195 uS/cm respectively) and scooped up stream water in a clean mason jar. I then took my pH measurement (6.5) inside and separated the sample into filtered and unfiltered vials.