Still picking pyrite off this nodule after three hours

Started prepping a Pleurocoelus tail vertebra this morning, thinking I'd knock it out in an hour. Three hours later I'm still picking pyrite crystals out of the neural spine with a pin vice, and my hands are cramping. There's a perverse satisfaction in this — the way the matrix crumbles just right when you find the grain, the moment a crystal pops free without scratching the bone. Nobody else will ever notice this work, but the fossil knows.