It's ALIVE!

[Nessie]

Nessie,

You mentioned that you hoped you could deepen this mud location. How do you go about deepening a particular bog - just by working it, or is there some outside action that you take?

Well, there's always...shovels...if I really want to, I could probably smuggle one in.

I also got one of those kitchen utensils that looks like a spoon surrounded by claws. One of my mud friends practically ordered me to get one of those spoon-claw things and keep it with me just in case I get a leg cemented into the mud somehow, although this has never actually happened at any of my locations. I've discovered, though, that those things are handy, especially for skimming unwanted stuff off the top of otherwise pure and lovely peat.

I'm not into working too hard to sink, honestly. A good quicksand pit should draw you down without all that extra effort.

So, for this particular location, I figure that just using it repeatedly ought to pound it in eventually. I can feel that it's bouncy under there, so there IS more mud under a layer of some kind...I just haven't busted through it.

But hey, if it doesn't work out, I still got the other sinkin' hole to fall back on (er, in). That's only another 20 feet closer to the lake and I've never touched bottom.

Nessie

[jack c]

OK, I just wondered if there was some medieval thing with heated iron rods driven downward into Merlin's bog by the commoners to heat up the magic mud, or some such thing. I am an engineer in construction, so I know there are plenty of mechanized messy ways to accomplish just that. It's just that it would be noisy, expensive, and not too private I didn't know if maybe you had some handed down simpler answer. Of course, when you are 5'-2", it doesn't need to be as deep as when you are 6'-2" - does it? It's just the thicker bog farther out sounds like it might be more interesting - glad your spot is as good or better this spring. Keep on hunting for bogs!

- Jack

[nachtjaeger]

I plan on doing some serious work on my bog this year. It's rather shallow with a clay and weak shale bottom. I wish I had a culvert spoon- that's a LONG handled shovel with a spoon-shaped head. Unless I happen to find one of those at a barn sale, I will make do with a large "digging bar" and a post-hole digger. If the bog is too watery I am going to add a few bags of commercial peat to it. Of course I have to get IN the bog to work on it. . .

OK, I just wondered if there was some medieval thing with heated iron rods driven downward into Merlin's bog by the commoners to heat up the magic mud, or some such thing. I am an engineer in construction, so I know there are plenty of mechanized messy ways to accomplish just that. It's just that it would be noisy, expensive, and not too private I didn't know if maybe you had some handed down simpler answer. Of course, when you are 5'-2", it doesn't need to be as deep as when you are 6'-2" - does it? It's just the thicker bog farther out sounds like it might be more interesting - glad your spot is as good or better this spring. Keep on hunting for bogs!

- Jack