So, enjoy the adventure, and be assured that the video product from my previous adventure will be well worth the wait! 
My August 29'th, 2021 Adventure, Part 1!
After my previous adventure on August 13'th (Friday the 13'th), things went haywire around here, as mentioned in my previous post. But then, things started settling into place, and I was anxious to get back into the back-country again for a chance to try out my idea for mounting the Gorillapod higher on my head strap to see if it would tilt lower! However, the weather since my last adventure went from persistently hot (and bad for forest fires) to a bit on the cool side with some showers, which helped with the forest fire situation. I had been trying to go on my outings every 2 weeks, and usually avoided weekends, but the warm days were becoming sparse, and I had to take whatever I could get, whenever I could. So, it was still too cool to go exactly 2 weeks after the last outing, but there was a warmup after that, with the peak being on Sunday, August 29'th, when the temperature was supposed to be in the high 20's (low 80's)! I would have opted for the next day (preferred avoiding weekends and holidays), but it was supposed to be a few degrees cooler with showers late in the day or evening. I was a bit concerned about my neck sensitivity, since after over 2 weeks, it had hardly changed from last time.
When I sprung my bikeride on my dad the day before, he once again started to protest, saying how I had gone on enough bikerides this year, and that I always go to the same place over and over, although I always told him that the plateau there has numerous places to hike around. As usual, he gave in, and on Sunday morning, he gave me a lift into the mountains, the air noticeably cooler than my previous bikerides, forcing me to put on a hoodie for extra warmth until things warmed up more. I tested my bike to make certain that everything worked okay, especially since I had made an adjustment to my front brake with an Allen wrench the previous day to extend a fixed pad to outside the frame it had worn down to. With my stuff all loaded into my saddlebags, and my dad heading back home, I was on my way!
So far, I had seen only one cowpie on the road, and no sign of any cattle. I hoped that it would stay that way. But, when I headed down to my sideroad, there in the clearing of the entrance to the sideroad, was a small herd of cattle, some resting on the ground!
I tried going around them on the east side to not disturb them, but they got up, and started to run off, some scattering into the bushes to the west, but the rest ran up the sideroad I was heading up! They ran way ahead of me, and before I knew it, they were out of sight. I then walked my bike down the side-trail over and around some fallen trees, to the clearing to the west, where there were some cowpies with dried-out "paper-like" crust in the grass of the clearing, that I had to avoid. Cattle had definitely been in the area, with the grass trampled. I set my bike down in the new drop-off spot under the shade of trees, before a large fallen tree. I got my things together, and was on my way to the pond just to the south, through the grass with some alders and willows, noticing how there were now paths worn in the grass by cattle. I just hoped that with the lower water levels, that no cattle would get in trouble with the soft ground. I reached my sinking spot, and set my things down in the shade of some alders to the west. Then, I swapped memory cards in my camera, and headed over my worn-down path to my bog to have my first look at it, and take a photo. Just as I approached the bog, I noticed that there was a dried out, elongated, drawn-out cowpie directly in my worn-down path, in close proximity to my bog!
I was glad that the sticks helped to keep the animal(s) from stumbling in! It seems as though any path I wear down in the grass, the cattle wind up following, leading them directly to my bog! It really emphasized the importance of keeping the barrier of sticks around my bog when I was not around! So, now I had something to avoid stepping into on my way to and from the bog! Looking at my bog, I noticed how it looked a lot like the way I had left it last time, with the uneven texture slightly smoothed out from the rain since my last visit. I had thought that I might have had to remove puddles of water from the surface, but fortunately, there were none!
Here is the photo of my caged-in "playground":Then, I returned my camera to my things, and proceeded to remove the sticks, piling them in the grass to the southwest, out of the way. Once that was done, I took some more photos of my sinking spot (I am including the full-resolution - 4320 x 3240 photos for best detail):
To Be Continued...
, and I had churned all the mud around me that I could reach. Then, it was time to move to another spot. The mud was now too thick to move through, so I had to work myself backwards towards shore, until I was sitting on the edge of the grass, pushing mud off me as I went, and then using my hands to help pull my legs out of the thick muck, one at a time. I progressed clockwise, jumping back in around the east(or perhaps northeast) side, once again landing waist deep in the farting, sucking mire, and then churning the mud around me there as well, taking great pleasure with my sinks. Each time I finished one area, I would then have to extract myself and jump back in the next spot. I then started to work to smooth out the surface as well, trying to make it as smooth and featureless as possible. I found that wetting my hands with water from the edge of the grass allowed me to create the smoothest surface, while sticky, mucky hands increased friction, resulting in a more uneven surface. When I was working the western end of the south side, I found a large leech that may have been just under the surface, all curled up in a ball. I picked it up and tossed it far into the floating grass to the east of the bog. I progressed all the way around, which took a long time, since I was enjoying the struggles in each spot as well. But, staying that long in the doughy, sucking quagmire that early in the day was taking its toll, in terms of feeling chilled. Once again, the feel of the mire was soooo entrancing, that I found it hard to leave, even though I was feeling a bit uncomfortably cool. I also felt some leg cramps from time to time, but fortunately they didn't get too bad, and would vanish. The sucking morass was so thick that it no longer released swamp gas unless part of my body came into contact with a pocket of it under the surface, at which point, it would then fart out at that spot, often along my body or where it was immediately disturbed by my arms/hands.
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. 
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! 
it was, and "getting the courage(or was it stupidity) 
" to take the fateful leap! 
I got fully dressed, including with my grey hooded jacket, to try and speed up my warmup. I then took photos of my freshly churned and smoothed out quagmire: