Today’s Ramblings

It’s been an absolutely beautiful summer here this year. There’s been the hot and humid periods, but we’re getting more decently nice days than last year. I’ve been feeling pretty lazy this season and have been favouring short to-the-point excursions.. I’ve made two trips in the last 4 weeks or so. One to the marsh and one to the bog… Both were relatively quick and short trips.

The marsh trip lasted about 4 hours. I got stung in the cheek by some random flying bastard (a stray yellowjacket, probably) and the mosquitos were pretty intense. I haven’t got into the deep expansive part yet, but the water levels all around me are nice and low so I am still holding out for a nice day trip there.

The bog… Well the bog is the bog. I really like the mud there, but it’s just too iffy for me to play around there for any length of time. Nevertheless, my laziness brought me there this past weekend because I didn’t feel like walking the extra way to the marsh. Mosquitos weren’t as bad, probably because of the refreshing breeze. When I checked the tracker back at home, it said the entire trip lasted barely 2.5 hours.

Fortunately, the only visitor this time was a cute young deer who hung around and watched me clean up for a while before eventually bouncing off into the woods.

I am a little worried that this year is going to end really early. I haven’t taken any photos of anything yet (laziness), and I haven’t done hardly any exploring this year. I don’t need to explore, tho, since I have my regular spots that are doing just fine this year. Still, the exploring bit is enjoyable and I may very well take a day trip through the chunk of forested area I visited briefly earlier this year. The main reason for avoiding it is concerns about bears that I really have no useful defense for should I encounter a feisty one.

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With regard to one of my previous ramblings… I’ve been wearing shorts over the suit lately. It’s working out very well. The (mostly) zentai suit I’ve been wearing is made of somewhat thinner material than the one I had before, but so far I’ve managed to not tear any holes in it.

I am still tempted to splurge on a FetsFash microfibre suit. I’m really curious what that would feel like and how it would wash afterward. I have a microfibre towel that I can just spray off and be done with, while the normal spandex suits seem to hold on to the finer (read: clay, silt) particles and it seems that no amount of washing and rinsing can get rid of them all.

We’ll see what happens. I think it’s a bit late now to order from Fets. I don’t want to get a more expensive suit and only get to use it once before having to store it away for 8 months…

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Might get lucky.

I took a few weeks off. I took a few weeks off because the last few weeks haven’t been the most hospitable. No significant rain has dropped for some time now. I also notice the lakes are somewhat lower than they were last year at this time.

If it’s true, this would play nicely with my summer time fun. Last year I missed out on the best part of the Creeky Marsh because the water was too high late in the season. This year it looks like I might get there much sooner.

There’s a few places in the marsh that I can really get into. But is the best and deepest of them all…

Wish me luck reaching this next weekend! 🙂

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So far this year is off to a pretty dirty start. 🙂 I’ve been to the pits 3 times in the last 4 weeks and each time has been pretty fun.

This past weekend was a bit of a test. I wanted to see how long it would take to get to the pits via the new route, get in, get out, and return to the start point… It turns out I can do it in a bit less than 4 hours if don’t waste too much time.

The specific spot I’ve been using is starting to dry up for the season, so it’s not the best for wallowing anymore, but it’s still in fine form to shove down my pants. 🙂 I left a nice butt-shaped indentation behind, so I hope noone gets too close to it or it will be real obvious that someone’s been there. It’s pretty well hidden by trees and forest stuff, so I feel pretty OK with going back in a week or two again.

I also romped around one of the other spots. It’s still got too much water on top but if I work it a little bit now, it will be of the most superb smoothness when I get back to it. I expect (I mean hope) that next time I visit it will have just enough water on top to make for some gloriously soup smooth fun muddy mud!

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Course corrections!

Part of my plan for this weekend was to get to the marsh without following the creek so closely. I sometimes encounter people paddling along the creek, because it is a really serene chunk of nature there. I decided to chart a new course, with the help of my handy dandy cellphone/GPS/tracker. The trip to the marsh was a bit messy because a big chunk of the path I took cut through some pretty dense underbush.

By taking this new path, I shave maybe a hundred meters or so off the path I normally take, which I thought was a pretty good win… However, on the way home, I cut an even shorter, more straight and direct path, and it turns out that that particular path is downright pleasant! I avoided tons of raspberry bushes and tree branches to the face, and the terrain itself was even smoother with less snappy brush on the path!

So I will for sure take this path again, and I can’t wait for that day!

As for the pits themselves… I was able to get to a couple of the better holes, but they are still under too much water. I stomped around to get them started, so next time I go I should be able to just get to it without too much prep time. I figure about a week or two and conditions will be just perfect.

I’m already making plans!

In the meantime, I was back at the hole from a few weeks ago. It had much less surface water but it was beautifully mushy thanks to my earlier visit. I am still loving the rich smoothness of this mud, thanks to the silty nature of the whole area… Once it gets worked up a little bit, any outdoor mud WAMmer would absolutely love it!

And so, I plan to visit again real soon. With the new trail I can potentially be in and out again within 3 hours…

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Could this be my dream vacation?

Doesn’t that look positively inviting? ha! It sure looks like something I might enjoy, except it probably smells like sulphur and the air around it might be toxic…

Apparently, wallowing in this kinda stuff is something that normal people can enjoy also, with the correct environmental controls maybe? Check out these folks having a wonderful time!

(Note: I’m aware that this embed-youtube-video thing is a full box of fail. I hope I can resolve this someday, but for now we’re kinda screwed!

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Day trip!

… but only if the weather co-operates!

I am really hoping to get a day out in the forest this weekend! The weather suggests a few nice warm rain-free days… But I am fully aware that there will most likely be some changes to this forecast by the time the weekend rolls around.

It’s a long weekend, so I really hope that at least one of those days turns out to be nice and hike-friendly!

I remember a few years ago I was longing for a day spot, where I could have my fun in the sun… I remember I was always afraid to because my fun spots were typically right beside trails or roads. Now, of course, I have my day spots. Several of them! I feel pretty safe there too.

But now, I find I would like to spend a late evening enjoying both the pit and the sunset. Who knows? Maybe it’s something that could possibly happen this year…

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Upgrades!

I finally got around to upgrading my dinky little blog that noone reads… Thankfully, I enjoy doing this, and the fact that nobody reads thing thing doesn’t have any impact.

So it’s with great happiness that I announce we are now running on Debian Stretch with the latest Apache and PHP versions available. Yay! Hopefully this will mean a slightly faster blog surfing experience. It will definitely help keep the bugs out. Too bad it doesn’t help with the mosquitoes outside…

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Finally!

I finally got myself enough energy to slip into some nice soggy mud this weekend! I feel like it’s been years since I’ve gone out on a nice hike. Most of the nice deep pits are still under water, but I was able to stop at a spot I had visited a few years ago. It still had too much water over top of it, but I was able to mush it up and have a good time anyway.

Next visit this pit should be more ready for use. I will be watching water levels… If I can hold off till the water levels drop another few inches, then I will be all set for the summer.

And yes, the mosquitos were intense. The breeze helped, but not enough to avoid me waving my arms around like a crazy lunatic on meth!

I’m thinking I should probably try to make myself a trail through the bush that avoids the snap crackle pop dead tree branch cacophony… Maybe I can get away with just getting rid of some of the eye level mess before I accidentally remove my eyeball with a dead branch.

I really want to have a nice quiet trek to the creeky swamps… Getting to the pits isn’t so bad for some reason… But the walk home is arduous and noisy because I’m usually pretty tired and spaced out from all the excitement *wink*

And so, I find myself staring at the map again. I’m going to try to make a path through the forest that avoids the creek as much as possible. This is because sometimes I encounter people paddling along the creek and, well, I really don’t want to be seen around there… It’s only a matter of time before I ‘accidentally’ encounter someone who knows the land owner… This would be a Bad Thing â„¢ .

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Dammit!

I just realized that this weekend’s website update reset all the theme customizations I made. *sigh* What a pain in the ass! So. I will switch back to the old theme until I get around to restoring my customizations from backup. Stay tuned!

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