My September 9'th, 2020 Adventure, Part 6 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!I headed back to my sinking spot, with the stick still in hand to use as part of my "cage", setting it down by my path to my sinking spot. I put my camera away, and began to prepare for my first sink! Once again, I had to carefully peel apart my folded swim cap, which kept on gluing itself together in between outings, and managed to get it over my hair and ears without making its tear any worse. I put on my swim goggles, and then grabbed my breathing tube, which I planned on using for the first time this year, initially blowing some air out of it and sucking it in to make certain there were no obstructions. I also shook it a bit as well. I then laid it down on the ground west of the patch of mud I was going to step into, trying to make certain it was away from any water. I was now ready to feed myself to the hungry patch of "bottomless" quagmire, exposed on the north side of my treacherous bog!
Because my patch of mud was so close to the water covering the middle, instead of jumping in, I carefully lowered myself into it, facing south, the mire quickly rising to my chest, and bubbling out a few farts. As I struggled, slowly sinking deeper, I had to keep my arms and hands raised up in front of me to block the lower blinding September sun from my eyes!
As the mire slowly crept higher up my body, I realized that my breathing hose was getting out of reach, forcing me to strrrrrrreeeeeeeeetch to my right in order to just barely reach it, swing it into a good position with the "mouthpiece" end closer to me, and then resume my sink. The slimy shiny undulating surface bubbled and farted periodically, as it rose over my shoulders, my upper arms resting on the surface for a while until they too began to get swallowed by the mire. I did catch a whiff of the gassy odor of one of the swamp farts, which added to the experience! I had to continue keeping my hands up to block out the sun from my eyes, the jellylike surface of the hungry muck rising up my neck and my chin, and then up to my mouth, slowly covering it, forcing me to lift my head slightly to inhale through my mouth, and face forward to exhale between my mouth and the jellylike muck, my hands still above my head. I continued to struggle, the slimy ooze slowly rising ever higher, forcing me to tilt my head ever higher to keep my mouth free of the sucking muck, occasionally digging some away from my mouth.
Finally, I was at the point where I had to use the breathing hose. So, I grabbed it, wiped away some of the mud from its end, cleared mud away from my mouth, stuck the end of the hose into my mouth, and bit down slightly, creating a nice seal around it with my lips. I was then free to struggle and let the mire suck me down deeper, watching the light over my head diminish in a slowly shrinking hole, which finally closed completely, encasing me in a soft, cool, wet darkness!
I inhaled through the hose in my mouth, and exhaled through my nose, the air not really bubbling to the surface, but seemed more like steady hissing through a conduit through the mud due to my head's proximity to the surface. When I moved my head to face forward under the suffocating muck, the top of my head may have breached the surface, but some more struggling made me sink slightly deeper. With my arms and hands pulled under and surrounded by the enveloping softness, it felt quite wonderful being totally encompassed by the soft suffocating earth!
I reached up to feel the surface of the mud over my head, and it felt like a level surface, which suggested that I was indeed totally submerged, although it felt like there might have been only a thin skin of mud over the top of my head.
When I struggled and moved around, I could feel the surrounding enveloping mire swaying with me, and then against me if I changed or stopped the rhythm, which felt quite amazing!
But, I had to limit the amount of horizontal movements, because I didn't want to risk hurting my neck.
Because I was so close to the surface, it was easy to breathe, with little pressure on my chest. Normally, I would submerge myself deeper and the pressure on my chest would make breathing a bit more work, especially forcing air out my nose through the mire, forcing me to pace my breathing, preventing me from doing anything to increase my respiration rate. But the fact that I could exhale so freely through my nose allowed me to be able to struggle beneath the surface without losing my breath!
So, with it easy to breathe at that depth (in through the hose in my mouth and out through my nose), I struggled vigorously, and wound up having a rather "stimulating"
experience beneath the surface of the voracious quagmire
, immediately followed by a feeling like my body temperature had suddenly dropped, something that I often found rather annoying whenever it happened!
I lingered and struggled a bit, enjoying the feel of the mire, but couldn't get rid of the chilled feeling. The mud around my head was also not that warm either, and was starting to give me a headache!
If I had waited a day or so, when the hot weather returned, it might have made a difference, but I didn't want to chance it with Hunting Season!
So, I enjoyed my underbog experience the best I could during what was a transitional day between cooler weather and hotter weather. I noticed that under the bog, it wasn't total darkness, but instead there was a ring of red around my visual field. I wasn't certain if it was because I was close enough to the surface for some light to leak in and light up the sides of my swim goggles, or if the pressure of the mud against my swim goggles against my eyes was causing something that could affect my eyesight (I was diagnosed with glaucoma which is not getting worse thanks to Latanoprost eyedrops administered every night)!
But, I noticed when I lowered my head, the redness vanished, so perhaps I was close enough to the surface for some light to find a conduit down to my goggles.
Perhaps my exhaled air created a hole that light could penetrate, or it went through my swim cap to my goggles.
But, anyways, I just lingered there for a few moments more before finally working myself back up to the surface, where I tossed the hose aside and wiped the mud from my goggles to see things again. I wet my hands in the shallow water over a foot away in front (south) of me to help clear even more mud off my goggles to see things better, and then lifted myself onto the grass on the north side, wiping mud off my body and into the bog. When I had resurfaced, I heard the sound of some kind of engine running for a moment
, but with the swimming cap over my ears muffling the sounds, I couldn't tell if it was from an aircraft, a truck, an atv, or a motorbike.
But, the sound disappeared quickly, and all was silent again.
I then headed to the pond, where the sun was starting to warm up the water, but the freshly warmed layer of water was only around an inch deep, with colder water underneath! I managed to get my head cleaned, rather uncomfortably (if it wasn't for the swim cap, I probably wouldn't have been able to get my head muddy in the first place), and then laid back on the grass that sunk under the water from my weight, and scrubbed my back against it to remove the mud from my back (some of it was stuck as a layer of brown scum on my skin), and did the same for my front, having to endure the cold water. I cleaned myself over and over again, until I was certain I was clean, removing my swim goggles and cleaning them and my face more, and then my swim cap, cleaning it, as well as the fringes of my hair just in case any mud got on it or my ears (once again the swim cap kept it out of my ears). Cleaning myself lower down was easier, and then I air-dried, with me feeling chilled for a long time afterwards. I took a photo of my bog after my submergence sink, thinking that some newly exposed mud towards the center was probably from my sinking shifting the mud around, since there was now more water on top of the part just on the south side of where I had just sunk:
2020 09 09 3Z Crescent.jpg
I got dressed, and even put on a thin sweater to help warm myself up, but stayed in bare feet. After having one breathing hose sink that was not on camera, I wanted to have another, this time on camera, in the exposed mud on the west side of the bog. But that would be later on, once I warmed up.
While waiting to warm up, I decided to head over to the south end of the pond, and the smaller pond with the shallow clay mud on its northwest corner, to see what it looked like with the lower water levels. When I got to the south side of my pond, I tried to pick out the location of the "treacherous shoreline" that was exposed a few years ago, but now still submerged, finding that it was difficult to identify any "landmarks" in the vegetation pattern, which was constantly changing.
But, where the south end of the pond narrowed and disappeared into the grassy meadow, I noticed that there was some mud exposed among the grass there, and a stretch of mud with yellow waterlilies along the boggy "creek" (more like a lower open spot that stretched southward and vanished into sedge grass further south) that separated the pond from the tinier pond on the south end of the clearing (they used to be all one larger pond long ago, also merged with the one to the east, perhaps being more of a lake). If I remembered correctly from years ago, there were possibly logs submerged under the stretch of mud with the yellow waterlilies in that general area.
I crossed over to the other (east) side just to the south where it was all sedge grass, and looked around at any open patches of shallow water or mud, trying to figure out where my second sinking spot from years ago was. I thought I had found the area when I saw an open round area with some weeds covered in shallow water, but I remembered it was close to a fallen log. I walked around a little bit more, and found the barely noticeable fallen log further to the south, and guessed that my old second sinking spot was one of the open patches to the south of it (couldn't really remember which side of the log it was on).
In that location, some of the carpet of grass died out, leaving clumps of grass with mud/water in between, making it difficult to locate any round patches of low ground, much like with my inability to locate my first sinking spot on the north side of the main pond.
I crossed over to the west side again, and headed over to the northwest corner of the tiny pond to see what the shallow clay area looked like. It was a bit flattened, and more mud was exposed. I wished I had my camera on me at this time, so I could have taken pictures. I then headed northward, back to my current active (third) sinking spot.
I was starting to feel a little bit warmer, warm enough to sink a bit, but still not quite warm enough to submerge.
So, knowing that it might cost me the opportunity to have the on-camera breathing hose sink in my main bog, I decided to satisfy my curiosity and try out the mud exposed on the north end of the pond!
I got undressed, and because I wasn't going to submerge, I kept my glasses on. When I reached the north end, I started at the northernmost part of the mud, finding my legs went down on the western part, but I didn't bother sinking too much there. In the middle, just like I had remembered, it was all gravel or sand with around a foot of loose muck on top. I walked around the center stream part and the sides, finding it all sandy around a foot below the loose muck in the center, but all muck with no bottom to the west, with me sinking down to the top of my legs with more soft mud below, before stopping my sink and moving on, because I still felt a bit on the cool side, and wasn't ready to sink too deep yet. While it was a layer of sand under the loose muck in the stream area, to the sides it was leg-swallowing stiffer but soft muck of unknown depth with a thin fragile layer of decayed plants in top, underneath the looser slurry.
Finally, while I was checking out the mud on the east side, I stopped at a wider spot, and when my feet plunged into the stiffer mud beneath the few inches of looser muck, I just couldn't resist staying there, and continuing to sink!
It slowly rose over my legs, and up my waist, so thick that my legs could only move up and down, but not horizontally! I reached down into the stiffer muck with my hands, and worked it and mixed it into the looser layer on top, the mud going from being stiff to nice and sticky and gooey and doughlike!
I continuously worked my feet down deeper and deeper, and kept on mushing up the stiff mud around me into a sticky goo, the mud continuing to fart swamp gas around me as I disturbed it. The doughy surface slowly rose up my chest, the stiffer stuff lower down rising over my crotch, with me mushing it up into more sticky quagmire! I would lift my arms up, thickly coated with the thick goo, and then wipe the mud off, or just lower my arms back in again, churning the mud and mixing it all around. To avoid injuring my knees, I had to be very careful how I struggled, because of the stiffer unworked muck deeper down locking my legs in place horizontally, with no horizontal movements possible, only vertical!
Because I had easy access to nice thick gooey mud, the thought crossed my mind that I had a new source of mud to transport to my main sinking area to build it up high enough to be above the water earlier in the season!
But, I found that this mud was full of fragments of decaying sticks, something I didn't really want to add to my main sinking spot.
I preferred it to be more pure mud.
I continued mushing up the stiffer muck lower down and mixing it into the stuff at the surface, and slowly sunk deeper, working each of my feet down a little more at a time, until I was just below my nipples. Then, I began to struggle vigorously until I once again had a "stimulating release"!
After that, I lingered for a while, loving the feel of the mud surrounding much of my body, knowing that this day was my last day of sinking this year, and I wanted to make the best of what I had!
Finally, I began to slowly work my legs up, one, and then the other, back and forth, wiggling my feet up through the thick muck a little bit at a time, taking care not to stress my knees in the process. I tried to keep pointing my feet forward, not down, to avoid the risk of painful calf cramps. I pushed down on some of the nearby tufts of grasses to help extract myself faster from the doughy morass that was gooey and sticky on top, and stiffer deeper down. Upon extracting my legs, one sunk back down into the stiff mud just behind (west) of where I had sunk, which I had to extract again. I smoothed out the surface and then headed a little bit southward along the eastern shore of the pond, to find a good cleanup spot there, finding more mud exposed between the clumps of grass. Closer to the pond, I encountered more floating vegetation (mostly rushes), which I was able to sit down on, with the water flooding over it from my weight until it was almost chest high sitting down. I began to clean myself off, finding that the water wasn't as cold as on the west side near my main sinking area (or perhaps the sun had warmed the water further since then). Once I had myself cleaned off, I headed back to my main sinking spot, midways down on the western shore.
It was now getting a little late, making me doubt whether I could have any on-camera hose sinks, and I was still feeling too chilled to do any submergences yet.
On top of that, when I got back to my sinking spot, I was disappointed to see that the shadows from coniferous trees in the forest to the west were already cast over top of the bog, taking it out of the warm sun!
But, I noticed something else!
The center of the bog was now sticking up out of the water, as well as more of the sides!
The pool of water on top of the mud was shrinking noticeably!
But, it was too late, since I felt that I had no time to do any more sinks once I warmed up.
I wanted to take another photo of my bog with the newer parts exposed, but wanted to have the sun shining on it, so while I waited for one tree's shadow to pass by, I grabbed my camera and headed to the south end of the pond and took a photo of the stretch of mud exposed there, as well as the mud with the clay on the northwest corner of the tinier pond on the far south end (no need for any horizontal mudplay there this time thanks to the thick deeper muck exposed on the north end of the main pond):
2020 09 09 3ZA Crescent.jpg
2020 09 09 3ZB Crescent.jpg
2020 09 09 3ZC Crescent.jpg
I then returned to my main bog, finding that it was almost clear of the shadow of one tree, only to have the shadow of another tree start to move onto it, leaving only a narrow strip of sun on it. I took a photo of my bog with the lower water levels, and missing a sedge grass plant that was in the back left of the bog, which I had removed since my last photo of the bog:
2020 09 09 3ZD Crescent.jpg
To Be Concluded...
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I focused on the last day that I could safely go sinking, which was Wednesday, September 9'th, the day before Hunting Season! We had some nice hot weather in early September to help speed things drying out, but closer to my big day, we wound up with a brief chill from being brushed by the western edge of what could be considered a late summer version of an Arctic outbreak that happened east of the Rockies! 
My brother then took off, and I was on my own! 
as my main sinking spot, due to the stiffer unworked "bottom" it would have, where I couldn't work it further. But, perhaps once the stuff on top was loosened, then when it flooded from the fall rains and spring runoff, the stuff that was worked would have loosened further, just like in my main bog, with the stuff deeper down loosening on its own. 
Perhaps I had the roads confused, and the road/clearcut to the