My August 12'th Adventure, Part 8 - Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!I had decided that I had taken enough photos of the exposed mud at the pond north of Crescent Road pond. So, I returned to my Crescent Road pond, disappointed that the sun was not only still filtered by smoke, it was starting to go in and out from behind tiny clouds (actually I started noticing tiny clouds while at the pond north of my Crescent Road pond)!
I decided that I had waited long enough, that things should have still warmed up sufficiently. It was well after 1 pm, time for me to make my newest video!
I repositioned my stick in a good spot in order for my camera to get a decent view of most of my patch of mud.
For this video, I played a person who refused to believe any stories about how deadly that patch of quicksand was, so he defiantly crawled around it all over, before finally standing up, only to start going down!
He refused to give up, until the bog closed over him! I had hoped that the mud would be thick enough now for the bog to close loosely enough over my head for me to breath through the small crack, totally hidden from view. So, in my submergence at the end, I waited until there was only small crack to breath through, thinking that I was totally hidden from the camera. I didn't want to go any deeper, because I was a bit out of breath from my struggling, making my rapid breathing uncomfortable with too much restriction of airflow. I also didn't want to go too deep, because of my concerns about my neck, which still hadn't fully recovered from last time, which was really spoiling my favorite part, the underbog experience!
Hoping I was totally hidden from the camera beneath the doughy mire, I then raised my hands and slowly lowered them, and then waited a bit longer. If it worked, then I would edit out my breathing and insert quiet background noises. When I was finished, while working myself back up, I tried to use my right hand to support the back of my head, but didn't do it right, and felt some brief pain on the right side of the back of my neck when I pushed my head up above the surface!
I was able to wiggle myself up to around my waist, but found it was a bit of a struggle to work myself any higher, because the mud was sticky and softer below. I just couldn't get my waist completely above the surface (loved how the mire was trying to keep me from leaving
), so I leaned forward, distributing my weight onto the thicker stuff on top, and worked myself forward enough until my crotch was above the surface. I then sat back, pulled my legs out, wiped the mud off them, rolled over to the west side, and smoothed out my impressions in the muck. Once out of the mire, I cleaned my hands, stopped the recording, took a snapshot of the area, and then turned the camera off.
2017 08 12 4ZG Crescent.jpg
I headed to the water, cleaned up my head and back, but cleaning my front wasn't necessary, since I was going to be crawling around in the mud again. I was really starting to notice how the water level had dropped!
I found that my usual cleanup area was getting too shallow, with now only a few inches of water over top of the sediment! I tried swishing the soft bottom away to make it deeper, but it kept on filling back in. I noticed that a small patch of muddy bottom was starting to become exposed just to south of me, as well. I tried heading further out into the pond, but it was still shallow, so I tried an adjacent spot just a tiny bit further to the north, finding it deeper, allowing me to finally clean myself off better.
I went back to where I had my things, and sprayed my back with bug repellent, something that I should have done on my previous outing. I headed back to my bog, and stepped into the west side, with the stiffer upper layer giving way under my feet into softer stuff below. It felt like it was sucking me down, with my legs that were close together totally fixed in place!
Wonderful to experience a stuck and sinking feeling!
I mushed up the surface mud around me, then worked myself up, and then stepped into other spots and sunk, including the middle where I had gone under before, and also crawled around, mushing up the surface, all the way around, clockwise, a very tiresome activity, but still fun!
Ready to enjoy the mud, I stepped into the east side, facing south, in some nice thick stuff, with a really thick surface in front of me, containing deep impressions from my earlier mushing, with a softer, flatter, wrinkled surface to my right and back right, where I had gone under for the video. I pushed my arms straight down into mire, as if trying to push myself up, with my arms having no further to push, pretending they were stuck all during the time I was there! I had a stimulating struggle, before just lingering there, still slowly struggling, and letting myself slowly settle deeper and deeper into the mire, lingering at each depth for a while, occasionally feeling the wet coolness of the surface of the mire slowly rising slightly further up my skin millimeter by millimeter. Every once in a while, I would feel bubbles of swamp gas rise along my body and hearing it fart or hiss at the surface. Some would rise, starting at my feet, others seemed to start rising from my crotch area. I could hear more swamp gas farting and hissing around me further out from time to time, all of that adding to the experience! I just loved the feel of the mire and didn't want to leave, even though I was feeling a bit on the cool side. I felt some slight cramps, but they never fully developed. I felt some cramping on the outside of my left ankle, in the same area where I had persistent pain on my right ankle, and hoped that it wouldn't cause the same pain in that ankle.
I continued to slowly and gently struggle, feeling how where it was softer below, it would move with my body slightly, before stopping, just like jelly. I didn't want to get too deep, because I wasn't feeling that warm, and the sun kept going behind the clouds, although when it was out, it was being filtered by the smoke, but still felt warm. I continued to struggle lightly, the mire rising up my chest, eventually cradling my armpits. Finally, I managed to have one more stimulating struggle, before lingering a tiny bit longer, feeling how smooth and creamy the mud was below, opening and closing my deeply submerged hands and feeling the thick, creamy mud flow in and out of them. It is an organic mud with claylike consistency, not from decayed moss, but likely from algae, not the green filamentous stuff, but the white fluffy stuff that can coat things in the water, slowly deposited on the bottom over ages, mixed with other decayed vegetation from pondweeds, yellow waterlilies, and other stuff.
Noticing that the clouds were getting larger, I decided it was time to call it quits! So, I worked myself out of the sucking quagmire, feeling some cramps in the inside of my upper right leg briefly, but it didn't last long. While working myself out, I think I pushed down on the surface with my right arm too hard while it was stretched out, and put too much stress on my sensitive shoulder, making it hurt again.
I headed back to the water to clean up my back only again (I would rub my back on the floating vegetation to remove the scum), in preparation for smoothing out the surface. But, after cleaning my back, I needed some time to warm up. So, I put my glasses on, and decided to walk to the south side, to finally test out the newly exposed mud there.
At the area, the meadow adjacent to that exposed mud was tufts of grass with soft thick mud in between, other sinking opportunities, while further out, the vegetation was a thinner carpet, consisting mostly of tiny rushes, which I kept falling through into the loose mud below. I made it to the exposed mud, which was around 4 feet of really loose bubbling mud, with somewhat thicker, stickier stuff below that gave way when agitated. There were some clods of decayed sod on the surface to push down on to move around, where there was nothing else to push down on. When standing in one spot, each time I lifted one foot, it would pull up the thicker stickier stuff below, forcing my other foot deeper, and when I would try lifting that other foot, it would drag up the thicker mire below and force the other foot even deeper, causing me to sink deeper and deeper each time I moved in one spot, with the mud on top being too loose to push down on to push myself back up! It was bubbling around me nicely as well! It felt really nice and "treacherous"!
When I moved one foot forward into the sticky soft bottom that was undisturbed, I could rise up and then continue to move forward. Continuing further east, the "bottom" (actually the boundary between the looser wadeable mud and the thicker, gooier mud) seemed a fair bit thicker, therefore not giving way quite as readily as the other spot, but still giving way, and was full of branches around 4 feet below the surface. So, I headed back to the more "treacherous" spot
and continued to wade around there, trying not to sink past my chest, since I no longer wanted to get my head or shoulders wet. I then headed back to the west shore, and then back to my cleanup spot to clean up my back again.
I returned to my bog, knelt down on the surface of the eastern portion of the bog facing west or southwest, sunk my arms and knees into sucking morass, and then had a stimulating horizontal struggle. I then returned to the water to clean up my front and lower face, and I think it was around that time that I first started to feel the first brief sprinkles of rain. I then took a picture of my bog before I smoothed it out, deleted it because I was concerned that I was shaking, before taking a second one, which I kept:
2017 08 12 4ZH Crescent.jpg
I mushed the surface up a bit more, mainly on the sides where it was thicker on top, and smoothed it out, crawling around the grass on the margin of the bog and reaching out to get it smoothed further in. It looked like someone had spread a bunch of peanut butter-like mud over top of a grassy meadow, but if someone was to step into it, they would be in for quite a surprise!
I cleaned up some more, before taking another couple of photos:
2017 08 12 4ZI Crescent.jpg
2017 08 12 4ZJ Crescent.jpg
I repositioned the stick to the edge of the mire, and then mounted my camera/Gorillapod to the lower part of the stick to try and capture the mud quaking and rolling when disturbed. I clicked the record button, and tried pushing my hand on the surface to the right of the camera to make it quake, but it wasn't effective enough. I should have used my feet and shifted my weight on the adjacent grass instead.
During the making of that video, it started to rain briefly again, which I found rather annoying (and you can hear that in that brief video). I stopped the recording, turned the camera off, and put the camera back away with my things, in the pouring rain. I then had to clean off some more while it was raining, concerned about the thunder booming to the east. The last thing I wanted was to get struck by lightning while cleaning off!
I made a more hasty cleanup effort, and when I was all ready to dry, I started getting hammered by huge raindrops (there were intermittent breaks in the rain), getting me even more soaked than ever, including my head, which I had been trying to keep dry since cleaning up after my submergence earlier. I still couldn't leave just yet, because I still had to put the sticks back around my bog to keep cattle out, having to endure more pelting rain, with the origin of the thunder staying to the east. Each time the rain seemed to taper off and about to stop, larger raindrops would hammer me again, feeling like hail, but it was only rain!
Unable to dry off since my cleanup, I had to get dressed in clothes soaked by the rain. When the rain finally stopped, I took one last photo of my sinking spot through the branches I had set up, showing the bog after it had been pelted with rain:
2017 08 12 4ZK Crescent.jpg
I gathered my things, frustrated that my junk shorts, which I had drying all day, were wet again, and also noticed that they were not completely cleaned, because the water I cleaned them in was too shallow.
I was glad that the rain had stopped
, and took my stuff back to my bike. At my bike, I was relieved that my bike was partially sheltered by the trees, and that my dad's IPhone was dry.
I then put the IPhone in a ziploc bag I had brought along in case of rain.
Since the rain had stopped, I decided to head back to the pond to take photos of the loose mud on the south end where I had waded through it. But, it was now a trail of water through the waded area, not really worth taking photos of.
I returned to my bike, put my things away, and I think that was around the time that I finally checked out my video (unless it was earlier), discovering that after the mire had closed over me, it then opened back up, exposing my nose!
So, it looked like my extended submergence part was a fail!
As I headed southward down the sideroad towards Crescent Road, I noticed cattle droppings splattered on the road, something which I didn't see before, likely because it was more visible when on the west side of the road (heading out) as opposed to the east side (heading in).
I headed back to the valley, not bothering to eat my supper I brought with me (Pizza Pops and Dipps bar). I tried turning my camera case around so that it would be on my back instead of my front to try and take pressure from the strap off the back of my neck. While coasting downhill, I noticed that my neck was feeling constantly strained from holding my head up higher to see forward below the visor of my hat. Perhaps that contributed to my neck problems, or was the main source (if I had only the underbog sinks without the downhill coasting/shaking with my head constantly looking up, I might have been okay) and in the future I should remove my hat for the downhill coasting, and facing downward while looking up with my eyes only.
My dad picked me up in the valley, and we made it home with my neck not feeling too much worse than before, so I didn't think I strained it too much.
Or did I?
It turned out that we had a big windstorm at home, shortly after I had gotten hit with the rain, which broke some main branches off our butterfly bush, took down some of my towering sunflowers, blew over a couple of my cactus plants, with one bent, and caused a power outage. The windstorm was likely associated with the rainstorm that I got hit with, although I never encountered any wind up there, just rain. But, the rainstorm missed the valley, with only gusty winds, and perhaps a sprinkle of rain. The central/south Okanagan was hit with the windstorm half an hour before I got hit with the rain.
The day was definitely one with its ups and downs! I was disappointed that the smoky haze delayed my sinking activities, and the rain ended things abruptly. I was also a bit disappointed that my submergence didn't go as planned, and I had to give up the opportunity of another breathing hose sink, all because of my neck sensitivity.
But, I was happy that the biting flies weren't as numerous, being less of an annoyance. I was also happy that very few leeches were after me in the water. The newly exposed mud in the pond was also a surprise, with sinking opportunities there as well!
I did have calf cramps in both legs at some point, which were relieved once I was able to get my feet flat on the grass, which had left my calves sore for several days afterward. Due to me feeling cooler from the smoke-filtered sun and clouds, and then the downpours, I apparently didn't clean myself off properly, finding some mud residue on my back at home.
Glad it was covered with a t-shirt! I was sore all over, but my abdominal muscles seem better and stronger all the time!
The day after, I had a huge sinus headache, which made it difficult to tell which pain was the headache, and which was from my neck.
The second day after my outing, the sinus headache was gone, allowing me to feel the soreness in my neck whenever I turned my head too far or lifted it too far. The third day, the soreness was greatly diminished, but the grinding and snap, crackle and pop in my neck was still quite noticeable. By the fifth day, the grinding seemed a bit worse again, and a bit more sore, but I was extending and stretching and moving my neck around underneath blackberry canes, picking blackberries.
It may have stabilized and settled down on the sixth day. Still crackling on the 7'th day! I think I am going to have to wait a while longer before my next outing, because I am starting to be a bit concerned about my neck grinding, crackling, and soreness, which isn't going away.
I just hope that it doesn't destroy my ability to submerge in the thick mire!
I need all the neck strength I can get, to push my head through the rubbery doughy mire back to the surface, not to mention struggle beneath the surface! The latest in a long series of injuries that keep trying to spoil my fun!
I will see how things turn out early to middle of the next week!
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