I got undressed, grabbed my pail, and started to search for the spot on the edge of the pond where I felt some stiff mud close to the surface, which would be easy to gather, just northeast of my sinking area. But, I couldn't find it, realizing that it must have been further out and I didn't want to get that far into the water.
But, I noticed how fragile the peaty rotten mats of what used to be grass was, now with some moss starting to grow on top!
I first found a break in the surface, and I dug down to find easy access to the mud, easier than taking it from the pond, where I would have had to be in the cold water during the extraction!
So, I proceeded to fill my pail with mud, and then plopped it into my bog towards the center, as far as I could reach. At first, when it hit the surface, it would disappear into it, completely sucked into the bog! But, eventually, it started to pile up on top higher. Once the first mound got several inches high, looking like a giant cow pie, I cleaned my hands, and took a picture of it with another pailful of mud beside it, with plans on snapping another picture or more as I progressed:
CrescentBogViewH8.JPG
I was happy that I was able to stay on just soggy ground and not be in the water, because I was able to remain warm during the job!
Last year, I dug mud from a hole where I was partially sitting in water, and was feeling a lot more uncomfortable. Since then, the mud in that hole had since expanded to meet the lowering water levels, with it now full of really liquid mud over thicker stuff deeper down where I had stopped digging.
While the mud was plentiful wherever I dug, I found that I wasn't able to dig down too deep, however, because several inches down, the mud was full of sticks and debris (would have probably had to go really deep to get past them).
So, after cleaning out a layer of debris-free mud several inches down, I would move on to another spot, tear through the rotting peaty layer, and proceed to dig the mud from there until the clean stuff was depleted, and then move on. Each time, I filled the previous hole with peaty stuff so that it would not be a hole hazard. I gradually covered my bog with mound after mound of fresh mud a few inches high, keeping an eye on the time, since I decided to stop around 4:30 pm, so that I would have time to spread and mix it in, and then clean up before 5:30 pm, since I needed to leave for home at that time, to get home before dark.
I then moved to the south of the sinking area and started to dig from there was well, hoping that the different area would have cleaner mud deeper down, but it didn't. Also, the trees were shading the area already, which started to make me feel cooler. While I had been working out of the pond, I was still kneeling in water as well, and my arms were immersed in the water, and the mud I was pulling up was cold, since it was buried under the peaty layer, and it was late summer. I paused, kneeling down, when a large airplane flew low just to the north of me, just like last time during my video.
That was the second time that such a large plane flew so low, so close by!
I hadn't seen much in the way of aircraft so close in a long time, until these last two times. I hoped no one saw me naked in the grass, although at that distance, it might have still been hard to see me.
It was getting after 4 pm, and I was uncertain about having time to get the entire bog covered with mounds, but I was now piling it on closer to the edges, and just kept on going until it was time to quit. I had decided to take one picture of the bog with all the mounds on it before smoothing it out, to show how much mud I added to the bog.
Finally, it was around 4:30 pm, and I decided that that was it. I had hoped to cover more of the bog, but with what I had added, should raise the level of the mud by an inch or so, which would hopefully make the bog exposed one or two weeks earlier for a given amount of water level drop the following year, and make the subsequent thickening that much earlier as well!
I wanted to do more, but at least this would have made a definite difference, and I hoped that I would be able to get an earlier start next spring, since we had such horrible weather until it turned hot the second week of July this year, something that wasn't typical.
So, with my mud transfer done for the day, I first began to spread some mounds out from the edge, before crawling out onto the bog from the north side, and spreading it all out all over, turning it into a really gooey patch of mire, the fresh surface stuff similar to what it was like in mid-August, and I couldn't really feel the boundary between that and the original mud in the bog. But, once I had it all levelled, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to take a picture of the mounds of mud covering the bog first!
I couldn't believe I had forgotten, after thinking about it just shortly before!
So, I would have to settle with taking a final pic of the bog at its new level.
I wasn't certain about having another sink, since I wasn't certain about getting myself muddy up to my chest again, since I was starting to feel a bit cooler. I first wanted to just stay on my stomach, and crawl to solid ground to the south of me, but it was a fun challenge, due to the sticky holding power of the mud.
Also, with each movement I made, I began to get sucked down deeper and deeper, the soft mud feeling slightly springy underneath me, and giving way more with each movement!
That made the mud simply too wonderful to resist some last minute sinking!
So, I struggled a little there, before standing up, and struggling some more, facing south, the mud finally feeling nicer than earlier in the day.
I knew that it was getting close to time to clean up, but I just couldn't resist!
After struggling close to the center, I turned around and faced the north side, where I was struggling against thicker mud, which felt even better!
Then, I repositioned myself in the thicker stuff on the north side, facing south, and started to struggle and struggle, thinking that I had no solid ground behind me, and was instructed to swim through the muck to the other side in order to save myself, or I would continue to sink and then drown!
But, it was too thick to swim through, and all my swimming strokes did nothing, except churn the doughy, batterlike ooze in front of me, and make me sink even deeper!
The sucking quagmire rose up my chest, and I was realizing that I wouldn't be able to swim to safety, and that I was going to drown in this stuff!
I continued to struggle, and as the mire rose closer to my armpits, and the surface in front of me quaked from my struggles, and the south edge was so far away in front of me, out of reach, I exploded once again, for the third time that day!
During the sink, I was really quite comfortable in it this time, and wished that I could have gone completely under, but knew that cleanup would be quite uncomfortable, and perhaps incomplete for my head, and would take too long overall.
Now I was finished, and worked myself out of the mire, wiping the mud off my skin into the bog, and then tried to push the muck from the sides of the bog towards the center, since it was already thicker around the edges, but softer in the center.
I headed to the south end for cleanup, into the smaller pond there, sitting on a log and cleaning myself off nicely, before returning to my things, where I did some final cleaning of my feet, air-dried off, and got dressed, noticing that the itch was back, which I felt was more from the water than the mud.
I was waiting for the shadows to move past my bog so that I could take a picture of it in the sun, but instead, the shadows became more extensive and solid, looking like the bog wasn't going to see any more sun that day.
So, I took pictures of my bog anyways:
CrescentBogViewH9.JPG
CrescentBogViewH10.JPG
I gathered my things and returned to my bike, stopping beside my bog to jump on the grass beside it to watch it quake before leaving. At my bike, I swapped SDHC cards in my camera again, put everything away, and was on my way at 5:40 pm, only 10 minutes later than I had expected, but 20 minutes earlier than last time.
However, even though I got home before 8:30 pm, it was even darker than when I came home later the last time!
Perhaps, if I have another opportunity to go biking, I should start back at 5 pm instead of 5:30.
Overall it was a rather nice day, although the wind did come up at times.
I wasn't surprised that the conditions weren't ideal for submersions, which was why I had prepared to do some bog enhancements.
I was happy that no animal was stuck in my bog, although the trail seemed to indicate that one did have a bit of a struggle through the floating grass/rushes between the pond and my bog. I did have a bit of fun in the bog, although I wished that it had been a little warmer, since it took so long for me to warm myself up again. But, if I had known that I could extract mud easily from under the peaty rotting sod before, I might not have wasted so much time warming up as much, and could have therefore made more progress.
But, I feel that the difference I made should make my bog exposed earlier next year, and that, coupled with the fact that this spring was unseasonably cool and wet, means that perhaps it might become exposed close to a month earlier, or perhaps 3 weeks earlier, if we get a decent spring next year.
I was surprised to see no cattle, since I saw so many at the same time last year. Fewer cattle meant that there was less risk of my bog having any uninvited guests.
When I was heading home, I noticed that the air felt nice and warm in places, but there were really cold pockets all over, more intense than I had encountered in a long time, likely because of the time of the year, and the fact that the warm weather had just returned, and it would have taken time for all the remaining cold air under the trees to be reduced, but the warm weather wasn't going to last, since it was going to turn cooler the next day.
The official high for Vernon for the day was 28.1˚C or 82.6˚F, fairly warm, but not as hot as on previous hot days. The Elkhart Lodge, my gauge for high elevation weather, hit 24˚C, or 75.2˚F, fairly nice, but not quite as hot as I liked, and I did notice that it didn't feel quite as hot as the last time. I was glad I went, because the next day, we had strong winds, and the temperature turned cooler. The day after, wet, windy weather, and it was only around 11˚C, or 52˚F in the valley during the worst weather in the middle of the afternoon (it was warmer earlier and did warm up slightly afterward, but remained cool). There is no sign of any really warm weather the following week before September 10'th, the first day of main Hunting Season, so, if I do find a chance to go again, it won't be for a couple of weeks at least, and I know for a fact that my submersion season is over for this year.
The rains in the mountains will be very cold, continuing to chill things further up there, and there had been talk of the chance of snow in the highest elevations, although it wouldn't last.
If I do get another chance to return to my bog this year, I will likely add more mud to it to get it to be exposed earlier yet, to bring the excellent late season bog conditions even closer to the heat of the summer, when I can enjoy it more.
But, weather permitting, I would wait until at least a week after the beginning of main hunting season, since things could be busy in the bushes when it first opens, before settling down.
So, I just wait and see what happens.
