BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 11/5/'23!

[Boggy Man]

After waiting ages for the right time, I finally went on my first outing on Friday, August 17'th, a day when the annoying forest fire smoke was to be at a minimum, before getting worse the day after. My dad didn't like taking me up Crescent Road because it was rough on his truck, but he took me anyways, dropping me off late morning, with the air much clearer than in the valley. I first biked further up Crescent Road a tiny ways to take a look at two ponds to the south of the road, noticing the first was full of water, which was usual. The second had the water gone, with cattle tracks through the mud. I didn't want to bother taking pix there, because I was eager to check out my sinking area. I was a bit concerned about signs of cattle on the road, namely tracks and droppings, and hoped that no cattle would be around my Crescent Road pond.

I returned to the turnoff, and was happy to see that there was no sign of anything on that sideroad in ages, since all the weeds were vertical and untouched over where the tires would tread. Not even any cattle tracks! I thought I would have to bike to the end of the road to make certain no one was there, but now I wouldn't have to! So, I could start things at my sinking area right away!

When I reached the trail leading down to a clearing north of the pond, I was extremely annoyed to see that a large tree had fallen across the trail a short distance past the entrance, blocking it completely! It was too high to haul my bike over (didn't want to injure my abdominal muscles or my shoulders or my back or my hips), and if I was to go around it, it turned out to be laying over another, smaller, fallen tree, which in turn was on top of a third small fallen tree! I had to find a new place to hide my bike, so I headed further up the road to find a new place to hide my bike, taking a photo of a curious chipmunk by the road, which was staring at me and making squeaking sounds:

2018 08 17 1A Crescent Chipmunk.jpg

I finally found a clear enough path leading into the woods to the west of the road, where I was able to hide my bike. I then put all the things I needed into plastic shopping bags, and then returned to the trail leading to my pond, climbing over the fallen tree to get past it. Happy that there were no cattle around, I headed straight to my sinking spot, where I set my things down in the shade of some nearby trees to the west of it. The bog looked the way I would expect it in early summer, with the water on the sides and even a noticeable depression full of water, with the center bulging above the water. I felt a bit disappointed, because I was hoping that the mud would be thicker, with no water on top. Some of the sticks had fallen down, likely from when the water level was higher earlier in the season, and the looser ground unable to hold them up. I was really happy to see that there were very few weeds on top, which meant that my job of mushing up the surface should go quickly afterwards! I then took the first photo of the year of the bog, surrounded by all the sticks I had put there the previous year to keep any cattle from stumbling in:

2018 08 17 1B Crescent.jpg

I then headed northward along the western shoreline from my bog, and took a couple of photos of some bare muddy patches:

2018 08 17 1C Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1D Crescent.jpg

To Be Continued...

[Boggy Man]

My August 17'th Adventure, Part 2 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

Then, I headed south of my sinking spot to take some photos of the muddy patches there:

2018 08 17 1E Crescent.jpg

When I got to the south side of the pond, I was surprised to see mud exposed in the vicinity of the "treacherous" shoreline!

2018 08 17 1F Crescent.jpg

I tried to see if I could locate the actual spot I had waded through the previous year from that side, but all I could see was grass and rushes and wasn't able to identify the location, but I noticed some more mud exposed on the far side on the east. I headed to the south end of the meadow to the northwest corner of the tinier pond, and took some pix of the mud exposed there, including the clay closer to the rocks, with a branch now fallen over it:

2018 08 17 1G Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1H Crescent.jpg

To Be Continued...

[Boggy Man]

My August 17'th Adventure, Part 3 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!


I then made my way across the bouncing, floating-on-mud sedge grass between the main pond and the tiny pond to the east side and took a photo of the patch of mud on that side, as well as the area I finally identified as the "treacherous" shoreline, now covered with water (I recognized the line of yellow waterlilies). I still took a photo to show how it was underwater:

2018 08 17 1I Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1J Crescent.jpg

Crossing back over the floating-on-mud sedge grasses to the west side again, I took a couple more pix of exposed mud along the way:

2018 08 17 1K Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1L Crescent.jpg

To Be Continued...

[Boggy Man]

My August 17'th Adventure, Part 4 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!


When I got back to my sinking spot, I had to remove all the sticks from around the bog, some of which had fallen over, possibly because the ground became too soft to hold them up when the waters rose after fall rains and spring snowmelt/runoff. There were numerous frogs in/around my bog, which started to scatter as I moved around. I then took a series of photos of the patch of hungry quagmire from different sides:

2018 08 17 1M Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1N Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1O Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1P Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1Q Crescent.jpg

I decided to make a quick video from my perspective of me walking over the floating sedge grass around the perimeter of my bog, to capture it moving and sagging under my feet and bubbling swamp gas. It will be linked to in my Dramatic Sink Videos thread once it is uploaded to Youtube and ready.

It was after 1 pm, and my stomach was growling, so I finally sat down on a rock and ate a couple of Deluxe Pizza Pops, before getting set up for my first dramatic sinking video of the season! I selected a stick, and poked it into the ground in a selected spot near the southwestern part of the bog. I mounted the camera onto my Gorillapod, and wrapped its knobby tentacles around the upper part of the stick. But, since I had cataract surgery in my good right eye (my left eye has poor grainy vision), I had lost my nearsightedness (have to wait half a year before I can get prescription glasses with bifocals), and couldn't see the camera display from close up, and that, combined with the glare from the sun on the screen, resulted in me having a bit of trouble getting the camera's movie's 16:9 view properly centered on my targeted sinking point. I had to try and look at a small screen from further away while trying to shade it with my hand. But, after a lot of fiddling around, I did manage to get my spot (hopefully) properly framed, hit record (actually I hit the button a few times because I wasn't certain if it was recording, inadvertently creating a couple of short videos of just the bog), and stepped away, hoping the springiness of the ground didn't cause the stick the camera was mounted on to shift when my weight was removed from the floating sedge grass there. For the scene, I wore a swimming cap to keep my hair and ears dry and clean to make cleanup easier, and wore swim goggles to keep my eyes clean as well (cataract surgery was back in early May, so no risk of infection now).

Hoping for the best, I proceeded with the scene, having to do my mentally selected improvisational opening lines a second time after getting things mixed up the first time. When I finally took the fateful plunge, trying not to step on any frogs, I was surprised to find that the mud wasn't loose after all, but rather thick, with only a softer surface! The water on top was probably from the rain we had a week earlier, rain which I had thought would finally clear away the smoke, but instead had even worse smoke move in behind it! There was also a layer of stiff mud under the looser top mud, which was likely the stuff that had dried on top the previous year before I added more mud on top. Perhaps without my addition of mud, that hard surface might have loosened up when the water rose in fall/winter/spring. But then, the mud would have not been as thick as it was now. I was very happy to see that the mud was bubbling and farting lots of swamp gas, which really added to the situation! I just hoped the camera mic picked it up. I was concerned about the occasional wind interfering with the sound. Even though I was concerned about making my neck pain worse, I decided to take my chances and do a submergence in the thick mud anyways. I felt that carefully moving my head in the mud without extending it one way or another would be like pressing and moving my head against my pillow in bed at night. Although I felt some brief crunches, I think my neck did come out okay after that. I tried limiting how high I lifted my head up to reduce the stress. I was also a bit concerned about whether moving in the mud would aggravate my hip pain or inner thigh pain, as well, but things didn't seem too bad so far. After I finished the scene and worked my way out of the mud, I cleaned my hands and pressed the record button to stop the recording. But, once again, due to my lack of nearsightedness, I couldn't tell if the recording stopped or not, so I hit it again a couple times, resulting in another brief extra video of just the bog. A couple days later, I discarded the three short videos, since they contained nothing but a few seconds of shaky views of the bog. My videos have been uploaded to YouTube and are linked to in my Dramatic Sink Videos thread .


To Be Continued...

[Boggy Man]

My August 17'th Adventure, Part 5 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

I then took a photo of the bog, showing the disturbed part where I had submerged and then escaped:

2018 08 17 1R Crescent.jpg

I cleaned my upper body off, my swim cap and goggles really making cleanup of my head a snap, preventing my hair, ears and eyes from getting muddy. I hung my junk shorts on a tree to dry, and also my swimming cap. Then, it was time to work at mushing up the mud, starting in the northwest corner, having an initial stimulating sink as well. Because of the stiff layer, it kinda allowed me to step in around waist deep, and then caused me to slowly slip down deeper and deeper into the slimy doughy farting quagmire while standing still, until I reached a point where I had to make movements to get sucked down deeper. I was happy that there weren't many weeds, but noticed that I must have introduced a number of tiny pieces of sticks and wood to the bog with the mud I added the previous year. So, in addition to mushing the few weeds into the mud and breaking up the stiffer layer underneath, I also had to pick out small pieces of sticks and wood! I worked my way clockwise around the bog, with those extra things to do making the job take a lot longer than I had anticipated, much of the rest of the afternoon. The mud was too thick for me to move around in it, so I would sink down into a spot, and then mush and clean everything around me within easy reach, before working myself out and moving to an adjacent spot to sink myself down into and repeating the job, getting leg cramps each time I extracted myself, which would be relieved quickly once I stood on the grass and flattened my foot. I did my best to mix the water into the mud, pulling mud up and over and mixing it in, with mud on the sides being a bit looser on top than in the thicker center. The occasional deerfly would try to land on me for a meal, and rather than swatting it with muddy hands when it was on my cleaner upper body, I would try and brush myself against the sedge grasses around the edge. The frogs were still hopping around in the area, and would scatter as I moved around. They must have been making the pools of water there their home, and I was messing it up for them.

Once I had gone all the way around with my mushing and breaking up of the stiff layer and the removal of every piece of wood I could feel (there seemed to be a large one on the east side, but it was deep down within reach of my feet, and I didn't want to strain my leg/foot/hip to try to bring it up to within arm's reach), I jumped back into the center of the bog, where it was the thickest, for one final stimulating sink to my chest, and lingering there, not wanting to leave, even though I was feeling a bit on the cool side, the sun seeming to be getting obscured by the smoke again with its heat no longer being felt. One thing I really liked was how periodically one of my feet would suddenly feel the mud part away from it, as a pocket of swamp gas inflated there. The mire would then slowly pass the gas along my body, working up my leg, and up my abdomen, and then finally let out a fart at the surface. Other pockets of swamp gas would fart out in other areas around me as well, all of which really adding to the experience! The bog had obviously built up a lot of gas over the spring/summer! There were also some clods of sod under the mud which offered lots of material for decomposition. It was as if the bog was alive, with digestive processes continuously going on beneath the surface, which I was slowly being sucked down into!

Once I felt I was finished, I worked myself out, and then smoothed the surface out, which was a bit awkward to reach in some places without getting back into the mire, the process taking a little while before I got it right, with the frogs moving out of the way. I then took photos of the reconditioned bog from different angles:

2018 08 17 1S Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1T Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1U Crescent.jpg

2018 08 17 1V Crescent.jpg

To Be Concluded...

[Boggy Man]

My August 17'th Adventure, Part 6, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

I cleaned myself off in the water, put the sticks back around the bog to keep cattle from falling in, and took one last photo:

2018 08 17 1W Crescent.jpg

I watched the video I made, and was happy to see that it was nicely centered. I got dressed, gathered my things and headed out, noticing that the air was suddenly extremely full of smoky haze, quite noticeable looking across the clearing, even worse than in the photo above, even though the higher elevation often offered freedom from the smoke plaguing the valleys. I left my things on the sideroad, retrieved my bike from its new hiding place, put my things back into the bike, and headed back down the road through the smoke-shrouded mountainsides, and into the smoky valley, where my dad picked me up. I came back a bit later than he expected and my parents were concerned for some time before I had finally phoned him when i got close to the valley bottom.

All in all, the trip was a success, with me taking advantage of the one brief break from the smoke to have a nice day of playing in the mud! The heavier smoke did arrive a day early, but it didn't really move in until I was ready to leave. I wished that the bog didn't have the stiff layer to break up, or all the tiny pieces of sticks and wood that I had to fish out, because it prevented me from cleaning up completely, getting dressed and warming back up while checking out the pond to the north to see how much mud was exposed there, and it also prevented me from possibly having another submergence sink afterwards when I was warm again. Instead, I spent the day in the mud, which prevented me from getting warmed back up. Earlier in the day, when I was in the mud, the sun did feel nice and warm on my skin. But later in the afternoon, after the sun started to get obscured by the smoke, the heat from the sun disappeared. The cleanup water was also not as warm as I had hoped, although by the end of the day, it did improve somewhat. The mud wasn't cold, except for deep down, like around 4 to 5 feet. There were a few mosquitoes and deerflies, but their numbers were down, and so weren't too annoying. The cleanup water once again had leeches, some of which did get a meal of blood from me, since some on my back went undetected until I was drying off for a while.

My trip down the hill into the valley seemed to aggravate my neck a bit, but it quickly settled down to close to where it had been before the bikeride, although the muscles seem tighter. My abdominal muscles started to feel more sore the day after, but I think it is improving. I am also sore in other places, which will take some time to go down, especially where I had experience cramps.

Two nights after, I had a good look at my video, and it turns out that all the farting sounds the bog made weren't picked up by the camera's mic, which was disappointing, but I didn't have the volume turned up too much, since my parents were sleeping upstairs. Perhaps at a higher volume some may be heard. It is interesting at the beginning of the video with all the frogs on the surface, going about their business, including one on the right looking like it was trying to eat something, having to then scatter when I jumped in! There were also dragonflies photobombing my video as well. I am going to have to split the video up between the sink and the escape before uploading to YouTube, to get the time down to less than 15 minutes (I wish there was a way to extend the time limit without using a phone for verification).

Now, the weather turned cooler, but it is going to warm up again, with it peaking the latter part of mid week, with less smoke than now, with cooler weather moving in next Friday. So, I am going to have to see how I feel before considering a bikeride next Thursday.

[dlodoski]

Thank you for the very detailed and interesting report Boggy Man - and congratulations for having an outing. Your patience seems to have paid off.

And it's interesting that you took the time to explore before having some fun. The thrill of the hunt. Hehe

Anyways, thank you for the pictures. They bring back memories, and serve as a reminder that good times are still waiting there.....

[NodeSinking]

My August 17'th Adventure, Part 5 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

I then took a photo of the bog, showing the disturbed part where I had submerged and then escaped:

2018 08 17 1R Crescent.jpg
I cleaned my upper body off, my swim cap and goggles really making cleanup of my head a snap, preventing my hair, ears and eyes from getting muddy. I hung my junk shorts on a tree to dry, and also my swimming cap. Then, it was time to work at mushing up the mud, starting in the northwest corner, having an initial stimulating sink as well. Because of the stiff layer, it kinda allowed me to step in around waist deep, and then caused me to slowly slip down deeper and deeper into the slimy doughy farting quagmire while standing still, until I reached a point where I had to make movements to get sucked down deeper. I was happy that there weren't many weeds, but noticed that I must have introduced a number of tiny pieces of sticks and wood to the bog with the mud I added the previous year. So, in addition to mushing the few weeds into the mud and breaking up the stiffer layer underneath, I also had to pick out small pieces of sticks and wood! I worked my way clockwise around the bog, with those extra things to do making the job take a lot longer than I had anticipated, much of the rest of the afternoon. The mud was too thick for me to move around in it, so I would sink down into a spot, and then mush and clean everything around me within easy reach, before working myself out and moving to an adjacent spot to sink myself down into and repeating the job, getting leg cramps each time I extracted myself, which would be relieved quickly once I stood on the grass and flattened my foot. I did my best to mix the water into the mud, pulling mud up and over and mixing it in, with mud on the sides being a bit looser on top than in the thicker center. The occasional deerfly would try to land on me for a meal, and rather than swatting it with muddy hands when it was on my cleaner upper body, I would try and brush myself against the sedge grasses around the edge. The frogs were still hopping around in the area, and would scatter as I moved around. They must have been making the pools of water there their home, and I was messing it up for them.

Once I had gone all the way around with my mushing and breaking up of the stiff layer and the removal of every piece of wood I could feel (there seemed to be a large one on the east side, but it was deep down within reach of my feet, and I didn't want to strain my leg/foot/hip to try to bring it up to within arm's reach), I jumped back into the center of the bog, where it was the thickest, for one final stimulating sink to my chest, and lingering there, not wanting to leave, even though I was feeling a bit on the cool side, the sun seeming to be getting obscured by the smoke again with its heat no longer being felt. One thing I really liked was how periodically one of my feet would suddenly feel the mud part away from it, as a pocket of swamp gas inflated there. The mire would then slowly pass the gas along my body, working up my leg, and up my abdomen, and then finally let out a fart at the surface. Other pockets of swamp gas would fart out in other areas around me as well, all of which really adding to the experience! The bog had obviously built up a lot of gas over the spring/summer! There were also some clods of sod under the mud which offered lots of material for decomposition. It was as if the bog was alive, with digestive processes continuously going on beneath the surface, which I was slowly being sucked down into!

Once I felt I was finished, I worked myself out, and then smoothed the surface out, which was a bit awkward to reach in some places without getting back into the mire, the process taking a little while before I got it right, with the frogs moving out of the way. I then took photos of the reconditioned bog from different angles:

2018 08 17 1S Crescent.jpg
2018 08 17 1T Crescent.jpg
2018 08 17 1U Crescent.jpg
2018 08 17 1V Crescent.jpg

To Be Concluded...

Hey there, I definitely enjoy watching your videos. However, I was wondering if you would ever make a video of you jumping in your mushed up pit and leaving your junk shorts behind? I know I’m not the only one interested in seeing that. If you can’t post it on YouTube even if it’s unlisted maybe I could share my email or something.

[Boggy Man]

My August 8'th, 2019 Adventure, Part 1!

Well, after months and months of waiting in anticipation, I finally went on my first adventure of the season on Thursday, August 8'th!!!! It has been an unusual year so far, with July heat in May and June, and June rains in July (which helped keep the forest fire situation watered down), but after a return to heat for early August, I finally waited long enough! It was going to be in the mid 30's (mid 90's) to the latter part of the week, but with the possibility of thunderstorms at the end of the week and the weekend, with rain and cooler temperatures. So, I had to take advantage of the conditions while they were ideal!

It was a chance for me to finally test out my new bicycle seat suspension, called the Thudbuster LT, to see if it will prevent my neck pain from getting worse, something that has been a major hamper for my adventures in recent years (the bumpy coasting downhill on the gravel roads really rattled my neck)!

Since it was such a long time since my last exposure to voracious bottomless quagmire, my plan was to have a personal stimulating sink first, before mushing up the surface of the mud into a gooey, quivering, gelatinous mess, which will *REALLY* come to life for my subsequent struggles after lunch, including for my first video(s) of the season!

That morning, to try and reduce any irritations my activities could result in, I took an anti-inflammatory I had recently renewed my prescription for - Arthrotec, which consists of Diclofenac (the anti-inflammatory) and Misoprostol (which protects my stomach). My dad, complaining about the bumpy road hurting his truck, once again dropped me off up Crescent Road, a short distance from my turnoff to my special area. Before he left, he gave me his new runners because he figured my rubber boots were too cumbersome. I had found rubbers were my general footwear of choice for working outside, because they didn't hurt my ankles the way work boots did, and my hiking shoes were falling apart. I was concerned about getting them wet, since they were new. I just hoped that by now the meadows would be mostly high and dry so that it wouldn't be a problem.

After he left, I first headed further up Crescent Road to check out a couple of ponds to the south of the road to get an idea of general water levels. Before that point, I was happy not to see any signs of cattle, but as soon as I headed up Crescent Road towards those ponds, there were signs that cattle had passed through. When the first pond came into sight, it was full of water, but then, it was usually quite full. When I reached the second pond by the road, it was low, but any mud there was totally overgrown with grass. Nothing worth taking pictures of there, so I headed back to the turnoff to my Crescent Road pond.

On the sideroad, there were more cattle tracks and droppings, making me a bit more concerned. I didn't want any cattle in my area! Just as I got close to the side-trail leading to north of the north side of the pond, I suddenly remembered to turn around to go back to where the road passed the east pond (my pond was the west one) to see if my sinking spot was visible from the road still. Staring as much as I could between the trees from the road, I couldn't see the circle of branches I had put around my sinking spot! The bushes in between the east and west ponds have finally grown enough to hide it from view! I continued back up the sideroad, hoping that cattle had trampled a new path around the fallen tree blocking the side trail to the north of the north side of my pond. When I reached it, sure enough, I was delighted to see a new trail around the north side of the fallen tree! It was such a pain last year hiding my bike in the woods further up the sideroad! I continued on up the road, since I always liked to make certain no one had driven further up the road, to come back when I was sinking. I glanced at some clay in some ruts in the road, and when I got a little past there, I realized that I didn't have to check the road for anyone on it, because the bushes finally hid my sinking spot from view! So, I only went as far as the south side of another boggy pond to the north before turning back.

I walked my bike down the new cattle path, breaking some dead tree branches from some adjacent trees by the new path on the way down so they didn't scratch me or my eyes. Then, back on the regular side trail, I parked my bike in its usual spot north of some trees, noticing how tall the vegetation was in the clearing there, meaning no cattle had grazed there at all! There was no sign of any cattle in the area, which made me happy! I applied sunscreen, switched memory cards in my camera, gathered my things (had to remove my socks because of seeds sticking to them), and was on my way!

I noticed that the meadow was spongy with water quite far from the edge of the pond, which had me concerned, since that was something that I normally encountered in early summer, when my bog would be submerged, and it was August! But, when I reached my bog surrounded by tall alder sticks to keep animals out, I was excited to see that the entire bog was exposed above the water, except for some water around the grassy fringes, especially on the eastern side! I was also happy to see that there weren't too many weeds invading the bog, an easy job to take care of! I snapped a pic of the bog surrounded by the sticks:

2019 08 08 1A Crescent.jpg

After removing the sticks from around the bog and stacking them in the sedge grass meadow near an alder, I walked counterclockwise around the bog snapping more pix, the grassy ground sagging and quaking around me because it was floating on water and mud:

2019 08 08 1B Crescent.jpg

2019 08 08 1C Crescent.jpg

2019 08 08 1D Crescent.jpg

2019 08 08 1E Crescent.jpg

To Be Continued...

[Boggy Man]

My August 8'th, 2019 Adventure, Part 2 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

2019 08 08 1F Crescent.jpg

In the past, I would have started with a dramatic video of me plunging into the undisturbed surface of the bog. But, as I mentioned before, I wanted to start with a personal sink, without any submergence, since it was still a little early and I wanted things to warm up more before getting my head wet. So, I got undressed, but kept my glasses on, since I wasn't going under. Standing on the west side, I focused on targeting the middle, since it looked the thickest. I just hoped it wasn't going to be just a thin layer of mud floating on a layer of water. After waiting from some frogs that jumped onto the surface to move away, I finally took the fateful leap into the center of the bog!

As soon as my feet struck the "innocent-looking" surface, the quagmire instantly gulped me down past my waist! It was nice and thick and gooey, and heavenly, since I had waited almost a year for this! I struggled in the voracious ooze, which slowly sucked me down deeper, farting out swamp gas around me as if it had previously consumed a large meal of beans! I mushed the surface around me into a really nice goo, pushing weeds under the surface as I struggled, but feeling like I was straining my (left?) shoulder. It was soooo wonderful, it hugging more and more of my body as I struggled, its slowly rising surface heaving, hissing, farting and undulating around me! I finally struggled more vigorously in the sticky gulping goo, steadily sinking deeper and deeper, until I experienced the "big release" as the quaking and heaving surface rose up to my armpits!

Now, it was time to mush up the rest of the surface of the mire, pushing the plants under to make the surface bare again, so nothing would be growing there to take things over, and making the surface the same consistency as the stuff below so that nothing would dampen the movements of the mire for my next sinks! However, during my stimulating struggle, I became concerned about water from the surrounding grass to the west of me oozing in behind me over top of the mud! I tried mixing it into the mud, but couldn't get rid of it! I worked my way around the bog clockwise, mushing up the surface, and pushing the plants and decaying pieces of sod (likely a large source of the swamp gas) under, finding lots more water not only moving in from the sides, also some bubbling up from below the treacherous quagmire, along with the extensive swamp gas! As I moved around the bog, I was leaving a trail of surface water in my wake! I tried to mix it into the mud, but to no avail! Bringing up mud to the surface to mix with the water was also bringing up weeds I had pushed under, which I had to push under again! I believed that all the swamp gas I was releasing was lowering the level of the surface of the mud below the water level, meaning the mud was probably exposed initially because it was so bloated with gas, in addition to the pockets of water underneath the mud! After the water started covering the mud, the farting had turned into plain bubbling. I didn't work on the eastern finger on the southeast side, because it seemed watery, and partially flooded to begin with, and was off the main patch of mire anyways. Once the surface of the bog was entirely mushed up and things mixed/stirred to some extent, it was almost entirely covered in water, except for some bits of mud sticking up in the eastern center!

All the movement of my legs through the cold mud with its resistance was taking its toll, with my legs feeling some discomfort for some time, especially from the top of my feet up past my ankles, the start of the dreaded leg cramps! When I dragged myself out of the flooded sucking quagmire, the cramps got worse, with me in total pain with cramps in several muscles in my legs! I had trouble finding any comfortable position, laying down on the grass, rolling, walking, extremely anxious for those painful cramps to go away so I could clean myself off in the water before the mud started to dry! Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the leg cramps eased, allowing me to finally clean myself off! I sat down on the floating part of the meadow containing vegetation such as small rushes by the water's edge, which sunk below the water under my weight and cleaned myself off, moving further away from the edge to where the floating meadow didn't sink under the water as much so that I could lay back to scrub my back on the weeds, which took care of any mud residue stuck to parts of my back I couldn't reach. I moved back closer to the water's edge, finished cleaning off, removed some bloodthirsty leaches from my skin before they had a chance to feed, and air dried off. I took some pix of the water covered bog, disappointed that it was no longer in any condition for a good submersion sink later on, making me kinda wish that I had made a dramatic submersion video first thing after all.

2019 08 08 1G Crescent.jpg

2019 08 08 1H Crescent.jpg

I got dressed, returned to my bike, grabbed my lunch, and while eating Pizza Pops (Boggy Man's official adventure snack), this time Pepperoni & bacon, walked to the other boggy pond to the north. I hiked around the ring of sphagnum bog (it consists of a deeper center pond with a ring of sphagnum bog around it, with broken pieces of pond around that). I took some pix of exposed mud there, which was likely a layer of peat mud floating on top of water:

2019 08 08 1I Pond North Of Crescent.jpg

2019 08 08 1J Pond North Of Crescent.jpg

To Be Continued...