Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 5/4/'22!
Posted: Wed May 04, 2022 8:27 am
My August 29'th, 2021 Adventure, Part 7, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!
After taking the photos, I FINALLY felt warm again!!!! My chills were gone!!! I guessed that perhaps having lunch helped with the warmup! I was now ready to prepare for my video!!!!
I returned to my things, and set my camera down. Then, I went to work, trying out my new idea of attaching the Gorillapod to the TOP of the belt in my makeshift head strap instead of in front of it. So, I used the shoestring to attach two of the longer* knobby tentacles to the top of the belt, and the short* tentacle to the nylon strap that went over the top of my head (*the tentacles have been breaking off over the years). Then, I attached the camera, and tried it on for size. After adjusting the camera's position, I noticed that I was hitting a limit to how far I could flex the Gorillapod over my eye. I did a test video, removing the apparatus, pressing the record button, and putting the head-strap with Gorillapod and camera back on my head. I adjusted the position of the camera, and then walked around with it, looking at my bog, holding my arms out to look at, and looking down at my shoulders, and the ground. Then, I returned to my things, removed my apparatus, and clicked the record button to stop the video. Then, in the shade of the alders, I watched the video, having to turn the camera upside down, since I had recorded it upside down. I was disappointed, because the view was the same as it was when I had the Gorillapod mounted in front of the belt, when I made my last video on my last adventure. While the results from last time were pretty good, I was determined to do better!
I then realized that perhaps if I could PIVOT the Gorillapod on the belt, it could allow the camera to face further downward! But, in order to do that, I had to untie the shoelaces holding the Gorillapod to the belt and overhead strap, and switch tentacles, such that one of the longer tentacles was on the overhead nylon strap. So, I had the second-longest tentacle attached to the overhead strap, and the short and longest tentacles on top of the belt. I attached the camera, and pressed the record button, and put the apparatus on my head, adjusting the position of the camera over my left eye. Sure enough, adjusting the top tentacle of the Gorillapod against the front of my head, the camera was pushed down against my eye socket, although there seemed to be some slight movement. But, making the tentacle press harder above my forehead helped keep that to a minimum. Then, I walked around to my bog, and looked around, down and holding out my arms and looking around more. I looked at my left and right shoulders, and around, before returning to my things, removing the apparatus from my head and pressing the record button to stop the recording. Then, in the shade of the alders, with the camera upside down, I watched the video. ***SUCCESS!!!!!!*** In the video, I could see most of my arms, and even part of my left shoulder, although I still couldn't see my right shoulder! This was the setup I had been looking for!!!!!
So now, all I had to do was get it ready for my video! I hoped that the new plastic wrap my mom had to replace the other stuff would work okay, but it was thinner, which concerned me. I wrapped it around the Gorillapod tentacles that were tied to the head-strap, but perhaps I had a bit too much wrap, because there seemed to be too much excess that was sticking out. However, the other stuff worked fine, and I hoped this would work out as well. I finally took a photo of what it looked like:
Before attaching the camera, I was concerned about some smears on the camera's lens window. So, I worked to try and clean it, licking it and using water from the pond. But, each time, I couldn't find anything to wipe it dry with without it still being smeared. Finally, I managed to get it clean with pond water, and wiped it clean with something (can't remember if it was my hoodie jacket). Then, I screwed my camera to my Gorillapod, and proceeded to wrap it up with the plastic wrap. But, it proved to be quite a frustrating task, because first, when I had the wrap nicely tight over the lens of the camera, and it looked like I could get it wrapped perfectly, the wrap in front of the lens fogged up! It must have been residual moisture from my cleaning! I had to remove the wrap and try another one. But, I kept on having trouble getting the wrap to stretch flat over the camera lens, and would find tears or holes in one spot or another, or the wrap would be open in another part of the camera! It seemed as though this different brand of wrap wasn't sticking together as well as the other stuff did, and seemed to come loose around the Gorillapod! I was getting frustrated, having to discard one piece of wrap after another, and was starting to notice that the heat was starting to subside, meaning that time was running out! It was getting close to 4 pm, my rough approximation for quitting time, and I had been watching for shadows moving in from the west, but it turned out that they had moved in from the SOUTHwest, and were starting to shade the bog!
Finally, I managed to get the plastic wrap nicely stretched over the camera lens, and it sealed nicely! Heart pounding with anticipation, I then pressed the record button, and put the apparatus on my head, and adjusted the camera position. But, the plastic wrap was unravelling from my Gorillapod, forcing me to abort the recording, fix the loose wrap, and then press the record button again, and finally putting the apparatus back on my head. I adjusted the position of the camera over my left eye, and made certain it was pressing hard against my eye socket. I then started walking to my bog for what I had hoped to be my best video yet! But, along the way, I was disappointed to notice that the plastic wrap on the camera was making annoying crinkling sounds when it rubbed against my face! So, I had to abort, and go back to my things, removing my apparatus and setting it down. I checked out the video, and did hear some extra noise. So, with no time left, I decided to give up on making a video this time.
But, I wasn't finished with my day yet! I decided to undress and have one final sink, this time a shorter one, before calling it a day. The bog was too spectacular to leave without one last struggle! So, walking over to the south side, facing north, I jumped into the middle of the bog, which was now covered with a tree's shadow, landing around or past my waist in the doughy mire, with it farting out gas again, and hugging my lower body so comfortably! Because it was already after 4 pm, I struggled to just a couple of inches past my belly button before my stimulation exploded, at which point, I lingered and struggled and enjoyed the feel of it for just a tiny bit longer, watching the sun start to move back into the western part of the bog. Finally, I began working myself backwards to the south shore, smoothing the mud I had disturbed as I went, then sitting on the grass on the edge, and using my hands to help pull my legs from the sucking quagmire, pushing the mud off my body back into the bog. I smoothed out the remaining disturbed areas, and was done!
I headed into the water in a spot to the northeast of the bog, and was surprised at how much the sun had finally warmed it up! Perhaps it could have been warm enough to clean my head in the late afternoon! It was definitely too cold earlier in the day! I cleaned myself off, having to rub extra hard to remove the brown film that was stuck in patches to my skin again, but since I hadn't sunk that deep, cleanup was easy.
All clean, I set out to replace all the sticks around my bog, something that was all the more crucial, given how close the cattle were getting the bog, directed there by my own path! But, as what happened with my previous stick placements, the odd stick would snap, making the resulting pieces shorter, often not as effective, and therefore discarded back in the pile. This time, after I had used up all the good sticks, I had to begin walking around the meadow and the higher ground adjacent to it, on the western side of the pond, from my bog northward, picking out more dead alders, and breaking them off, and then stripping any loose bark from them with my hands, before utilizing them. That took a little while, but eventually, I had several more new large sticks to use to keep the cattle away from the hazardous area. Once again, the south side was mostly open, since the floating grass there was too fragile outside the bog to begin with for cattle to even try going there. To be safe, I extended the wall of sticks on the west side further southward. I then returned to my things, and took a couple of photos:
I then returned to my things, got dressed, removed the plastic wrap from my Gorillapod, and untied it from the head-strap. But, when I bent the tentacles around to make it fit in my partially broken margarine container where I stored it, the medium sized tentacle broke off! So, now the Gorillapod has one longer tentacle, a stubby one and an even stubbier one! I just hope that it is still functional for my needs, or I might have to purchase a new one! It has been used for well over a decade, and has probably developed microfractures over the time to weaken it, or perhaps it has gotten brittle over the years. But, perhaps tying the shoestring around the tentacles could have put too much stress on the narrow neck between the knobby joints.
I finished getting organized, and with my things in hand, I took one last look at my bog, which I figured was going to be the last time I saw it this year. I returned to my bike, and put things away, and was back on the road before 6 pm, the time I was supposed to be in the valley phoning my dad! So, I had to really rush, really pushing things with my knees pedaling my bike faster than I usually did, to try and make it to the beginning of the big downhill descent for 6:15 pm, and reach cell range for 6:30! I made it to the beginning of the descent at 6:16 pm, and coasted downhill faster than usual, the bumps hitting me harder than they usually did, even with my Thudbuster LT seat suspension. I made it to cell reception at around 6:30, and was phoning my dad a minute later. With my dad on his way, I quickly got down the rest of the gravel road, and finally onto pavement. I finally reached the valley bottom, and as I got closer to where my dad usually met me, I felt a large insect hit into me. Concerned that it was a stinging insect, I looked down to my lower left to see if anything was on me. Then, pain suddenly hit the right side of the back of my neck! I was hoping that my neck sensitivity wouldn't get worse, especially since I never had any submergence sinks this time, but I guess that going down that gravel road a bit faster than I usually did was too much. My dad picked me up, and he told me that this time he wasn't worried like before.
Overall, it was both a productive and a disappointing day. I had such high hopes to get a first-person video of a submergence sink, this time with a lower camera view to capture the view closer to my body, but the new plastic wrap my mom bought wasn't of the same quality as the previous stuff. I noticed that it wasn't as sticky, so it kept coming loose, and was difficult to remove wrinkles from. But, at least I finally found the Gorillapod configuration that allowed me to get that closer view, and would use it in the future! I just hoped that the breaking off of another of the tentacles from the Gorillapod wouldn't affect my ability to connect it to the head-strap, or affect my ability to reproduce the latest successful Gorillapod configuration. I later realized that I could have at least made a non-submergence video without any protective plastic wrap, where I could have struggled as deep as I could without the mud touching my camera, and then struggling to escape! But, it was getting late, and the only thing that came to mind at the time was to just jump right in for a quick stimulating sink, and then get out to clean up and shut things down for the day, making a new first-person video some other time (or next year).
The day started off cool, and once again, I wound up wasting a lot of time trying to warm up before being ready for the next sink. It took until the late afternoon before the cleanup water was warm, and the shadows were already moving over my bog in the mid to late afternoon. I was surprised that it turned out that in the valley, we did get up to slightly above 30˚C (86˚F)!
I was happy that the horseflies, deerflies and mosquitoes were finally gone, but now they were replaced by bald-faced hornets, which were everywhere, and periodically pestering me throughout the day! So far this year, I encountered very few leeches, but I did find one large one in my bog, and also a smaller one on me during one of my cleanups.
In the grass west of my bog, I had noticed something small running through the grass, and wondered what it was. Then later, while I was sitting down and working on my head-strap and Gorillapod, a curious but timid chipmunk appeared, and approached me, but when I made the slightest movement, it would disappear, but stayed nearby among the grass and alders for a while. I also saw a white-tailed deer on the east side of the pond vanish into the woods, and saw some ducks in the water.
All in all, I really enjoyed the time I spent in the mire, and after this adventure, had been watching for any signs of warmer weather before the beginning of Hunting Season on September 10'th. And, it looked like there would be a peak in the weather in the days leading up to it, which I was keeping an eye on. But, my brother had my dad's truck (his truck broke down and they had to make produce deliveries), and I didn't know if we could get it back for the day (Sept 7'th or 8'th, preferably 8'th). I kept my fingers crossed, anyways.
After taking the photos, I FINALLY felt warm again!!!! My chills were gone!!! I guessed that perhaps having lunch helped with the warmup! I was now ready to prepare for my video!!!!
I returned to my things, and set my camera down. Then, I went to work, trying out my new idea of attaching the Gorillapod to the TOP of the belt in my makeshift head strap instead of in front of it. So, I used the shoestring to attach two of the longer* knobby tentacles to the top of the belt, and the short* tentacle to the nylon strap that went over the top of my head (*the tentacles have been breaking off over the years). Then, I attached the camera, and tried it on for size. After adjusting the camera's position, I noticed that I was hitting a limit to how far I could flex the Gorillapod over my eye. I did a test video, removing the apparatus, pressing the record button, and putting the head-strap with Gorillapod and camera back on my head. I adjusted the position of the camera, and then walked around with it, looking at my bog, holding my arms out to look at, and looking down at my shoulders, and the ground. Then, I returned to my things, removed my apparatus, and clicked the record button to stop the video. Then, in the shade of the alders, I watched the video, having to turn the camera upside down, since I had recorded it upside down. I was disappointed, because the view was the same as it was when I had the Gorillapod mounted in front of the belt, when I made my last video on my last adventure. While the results from last time were pretty good, I was determined to do better!
I then realized that perhaps if I could PIVOT the Gorillapod on the belt, it could allow the camera to face further downward! But, in order to do that, I had to untie the shoelaces holding the Gorillapod to the belt and overhead strap, and switch tentacles, such that one of the longer tentacles was on the overhead nylon strap. So, I had the second-longest tentacle attached to the overhead strap, and the short and longest tentacles on top of the belt. I attached the camera, and pressed the record button, and put the apparatus on my head, adjusting the position of the camera over my left eye. Sure enough, adjusting the top tentacle of the Gorillapod against the front of my head, the camera was pushed down against my eye socket, although there seemed to be some slight movement. But, making the tentacle press harder above my forehead helped keep that to a minimum. Then, I walked around to my bog, and looked around, down and holding out my arms and looking around more. I looked at my left and right shoulders, and around, before returning to my things, removing the apparatus from my head and pressing the record button to stop the recording. Then, in the shade of the alders, with the camera upside down, I watched the video. ***SUCCESS!!!!!!*** In the video, I could see most of my arms, and even part of my left shoulder, although I still couldn't see my right shoulder! This was the setup I had been looking for!!!!!
So now, all I had to do was get it ready for my video! I hoped that the new plastic wrap my mom had to replace the other stuff would work okay, but it was thinner, which concerned me. I wrapped it around the Gorillapod tentacles that were tied to the head-strap, but perhaps I had a bit too much wrap, because there seemed to be too much excess that was sticking out. However, the other stuff worked fine, and I hoped this would work out as well. I finally took a photo of what it looked like:
Before attaching the camera, I was concerned about some smears on the camera's lens window. So, I worked to try and clean it, licking it and using water from the pond. But, each time, I couldn't find anything to wipe it dry with without it still being smeared. Finally, I managed to get it clean with pond water, and wiped it clean with something (can't remember if it was my hoodie jacket). Then, I screwed my camera to my Gorillapod, and proceeded to wrap it up with the plastic wrap. But, it proved to be quite a frustrating task, because first, when I had the wrap nicely tight over the lens of the camera, and it looked like I could get it wrapped perfectly, the wrap in front of the lens fogged up! It must have been residual moisture from my cleaning! I had to remove the wrap and try another one. But, I kept on having trouble getting the wrap to stretch flat over the camera lens, and would find tears or holes in one spot or another, or the wrap would be open in another part of the camera! It seemed as though this different brand of wrap wasn't sticking together as well as the other stuff did, and seemed to come loose around the Gorillapod! I was getting frustrated, having to discard one piece of wrap after another, and was starting to notice that the heat was starting to subside, meaning that time was running out! It was getting close to 4 pm, my rough approximation for quitting time, and I had been watching for shadows moving in from the west, but it turned out that they had moved in from the SOUTHwest, and were starting to shade the bog!
Finally, I managed to get the plastic wrap nicely stretched over the camera lens, and it sealed nicely! Heart pounding with anticipation, I then pressed the record button, and put the apparatus on my head, and adjusted the camera position. But, the plastic wrap was unravelling from my Gorillapod, forcing me to abort the recording, fix the loose wrap, and then press the record button again, and finally putting the apparatus back on my head. I adjusted the position of the camera over my left eye, and made certain it was pressing hard against my eye socket. I then started walking to my bog for what I had hoped to be my best video yet! But, along the way, I was disappointed to notice that the plastic wrap on the camera was making annoying crinkling sounds when it rubbed against my face! So, I had to abort, and go back to my things, removing my apparatus and setting it down. I checked out the video, and did hear some extra noise. So, with no time left, I decided to give up on making a video this time.
But, I wasn't finished with my day yet! I decided to undress and have one final sink, this time a shorter one, before calling it a day. The bog was too spectacular to leave without one last struggle! So, walking over to the south side, facing north, I jumped into the middle of the bog, which was now covered with a tree's shadow, landing around or past my waist in the doughy mire, with it farting out gas again, and hugging my lower body so comfortably! Because it was already after 4 pm, I struggled to just a couple of inches past my belly button before my stimulation exploded, at which point, I lingered and struggled and enjoyed the feel of it for just a tiny bit longer, watching the sun start to move back into the western part of the bog. Finally, I began working myself backwards to the south shore, smoothing the mud I had disturbed as I went, then sitting on the grass on the edge, and using my hands to help pull my legs from the sucking quagmire, pushing the mud off my body back into the bog. I smoothed out the remaining disturbed areas, and was done!
I headed into the water in a spot to the northeast of the bog, and was surprised at how much the sun had finally warmed it up! Perhaps it could have been warm enough to clean my head in the late afternoon! It was definitely too cold earlier in the day! I cleaned myself off, having to rub extra hard to remove the brown film that was stuck in patches to my skin again, but since I hadn't sunk that deep, cleanup was easy.
All clean, I set out to replace all the sticks around my bog, something that was all the more crucial, given how close the cattle were getting the bog, directed there by my own path! But, as what happened with my previous stick placements, the odd stick would snap, making the resulting pieces shorter, often not as effective, and therefore discarded back in the pile. This time, after I had used up all the good sticks, I had to begin walking around the meadow and the higher ground adjacent to it, on the western side of the pond, from my bog northward, picking out more dead alders, and breaking them off, and then stripping any loose bark from them with my hands, before utilizing them. That took a little while, but eventually, I had several more new large sticks to use to keep the cattle away from the hazardous area. Once again, the south side was mostly open, since the floating grass there was too fragile outside the bog to begin with for cattle to even try going there. To be safe, I extended the wall of sticks on the west side further southward. I then returned to my things, and took a couple of photos:
I then returned to my things, got dressed, removed the plastic wrap from my Gorillapod, and untied it from the head-strap. But, when I bent the tentacles around to make it fit in my partially broken margarine container where I stored it, the medium sized tentacle broke off! So, now the Gorillapod has one longer tentacle, a stubby one and an even stubbier one! I just hope that it is still functional for my needs, or I might have to purchase a new one! It has been used for well over a decade, and has probably developed microfractures over the time to weaken it, or perhaps it has gotten brittle over the years. But, perhaps tying the shoestring around the tentacles could have put too much stress on the narrow neck between the knobby joints.
I finished getting organized, and with my things in hand, I took one last look at my bog, which I figured was going to be the last time I saw it this year. I returned to my bike, and put things away, and was back on the road before 6 pm, the time I was supposed to be in the valley phoning my dad! So, I had to really rush, really pushing things with my knees pedaling my bike faster than I usually did, to try and make it to the beginning of the big downhill descent for 6:15 pm, and reach cell range for 6:30! I made it to the beginning of the descent at 6:16 pm, and coasted downhill faster than usual, the bumps hitting me harder than they usually did, even with my Thudbuster LT seat suspension. I made it to cell reception at around 6:30, and was phoning my dad a minute later. With my dad on his way, I quickly got down the rest of the gravel road, and finally onto pavement. I finally reached the valley bottom, and as I got closer to where my dad usually met me, I felt a large insect hit into me. Concerned that it was a stinging insect, I looked down to my lower left to see if anything was on me. Then, pain suddenly hit the right side of the back of my neck! I was hoping that my neck sensitivity wouldn't get worse, especially since I never had any submergence sinks this time, but I guess that going down that gravel road a bit faster than I usually did was too much. My dad picked me up, and he told me that this time he wasn't worried like before.
Overall, it was both a productive and a disappointing day. I had such high hopes to get a first-person video of a submergence sink, this time with a lower camera view to capture the view closer to my body, but the new plastic wrap my mom bought wasn't of the same quality as the previous stuff. I noticed that it wasn't as sticky, so it kept coming loose, and was difficult to remove wrinkles from. But, at least I finally found the Gorillapod configuration that allowed me to get that closer view, and would use it in the future! I just hoped that the breaking off of another of the tentacles from the Gorillapod wouldn't affect my ability to connect it to the head-strap, or affect my ability to reproduce the latest successful Gorillapod configuration. I later realized that I could have at least made a non-submergence video without any protective plastic wrap, where I could have struggled as deep as I could without the mud touching my camera, and then struggling to escape! But, it was getting late, and the only thing that came to mind at the time was to just jump right in for a quick stimulating sink, and then get out to clean up and shut things down for the day, making a new first-person video some other time (or next year).
The day started off cool, and once again, I wound up wasting a lot of time trying to warm up before being ready for the next sink. It took until the late afternoon before the cleanup water was warm, and the shadows were already moving over my bog in the mid to late afternoon. I was surprised that it turned out that in the valley, we did get up to slightly above 30˚C (86˚F)!
I was happy that the horseflies, deerflies and mosquitoes were finally gone, but now they were replaced by bald-faced hornets, which were everywhere, and periodically pestering me throughout the day! So far this year, I encountered very few leeches, but I did find one large one in my bog, and also a smaller one on me during one of my cleanups.
In the grass west of my bog, I had noticed something small running through the grass, and wondered what it was. Then later, while I was sitting down and working on my head-strap and Gorillapod, a curious but timid chipmunk appeared, and approached me, but when I made the slightest movement, it would disappear, but stayed nearby among the grass and alders for a while. I also saw a white-tailed deer on the east side of the pond vanish into the woods, and saw some ducks in the water.
All in all, I really enjoyed the time I spent in the mire, and after this adventure, had been watching for any signs of warmer weather before the beginning of Hunting Season on September 10'th. And, it looked like there would be a peak in the weather in the days leading up to it, which I was keeping an eye on. But, my brother had my dad's truck (his truck broke down and they had to make produce deliveries), and I didn't know if we could get it back for the day (Sept 7'th or 8'th, preferably 8'th). I kept my fingers crossed, anyways.