My August 18'th, 2026 Adventure, Part 3, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!I returned to my things, put my shoes back on, returned to my bike, grabbed my lunch and Powerade, and took a walk up the sideroad to help me warm up. I went past the pond to the north with the ring bog. I could see that the stream leaving it was mostly free of water with mud exposed, but the pond itself looked full with not much in the way of mud exposed, as far as I could see from the south side, except for some shallow black stuff trampled by cattle on the southwest edge. I walked further up the sideroad, until I started to feel warm. Then, I headed back, finishing snacking on a couple of Pizza Pops and an almond Sweet & Salty bar. By the time I got back to my bike, I was feeling warm and ready for my second sinking session of the day, this time on video!
I grabbed my bag of things and returned to my bog, setting things down in the usual area among the alders. I got out my swim goggles, swim cap, Gorillapod, and junk shorts. When I changed into the shorts, I once again had to use a string as a belt because the elastic in the waist was so stretched. I set my camera's picture size to 16:9 (10.5M 4320x2432) to match the video's aspect ratio (but not resolution) to properly frame the location of interest. I pulled out one of my sticks from the cage and tried to poke it through a weak spot in the grass on the south side, but the stick was brittle and broke. I tried a different one, but it seemed as though the Gorillapod had trouble gripping onto it. Perhaps it was too thin.
After a bit of fiddling around, I decided to mount the camera/Gorillapod on the west side, on one of the other cage sticks already set into the ground. Once I had the camera mounted, and was able to successfully test-zoom it to properly frame the pristine ground between the churned-up stuff in front and the grass in the back, I then returned to my things. I put on my swim cap and put my swim goggles on my forehead, to be moved down over my eyes once I had re-zoomed the camera and started the video. I started waiting for the sun to come out from behind a cloud, which had just started to cover the sun, after the sun being out for much of the day, with the exception of the morning. Finally, I decided to not to wait any longer and to proceed with my video. With the area of interest properly framed and zoomed in, I pressed the record button at 1:59 pm, heard the beep, and was ready to begin my first dramatic sinking/submergence video of the season, this one with the theme
"Starving Ground"!
This is the framed view:
2026 08 18 1Q Crescent.jpg
I walked around to the east side of the bog, and then started making my usual monologue "thinking out loud" part to set up the scene, before finally taking that fateful leap, with the voracious quagmire gulping me down to my waist! I slowly sunk to my chest before finally pushing my hands/arms down, breaking the thicker surface layer, the hungry muck closing over them. I struggled with my arms "stuck" beneath the surface, slowly sinking deeper and deeper, the darker gooey muck underneath contrasting with the lighter, slightly firmer, surface layer. As the doughy ooze rose up to my head, I laid my head back, with the sucking ooze rising higher around its sides! As the treacherous morass started to get close to touching my eyes, I suddenly realized that I had forgot to pull down my swim goggles!
So, I got my hands/arms "unstuck", wiped the mud off each other, pulled the swim goggles over my eyes, and let the voracious ooze claim my arms/hands again. With the swim goggles protecting my eyes, I was able to continue getting swallowed by the starving ground, with my view of the sky through the goggles getting closed in with soft, doughy darkness! When the suffocating ooze closed over my nose and mouth, I had to start digging the batterlike mire away from my mouth to breathe again briefly, before it oozed closed again, forcing me to dig it away again for some brief breaths before the smothering mire sucked closed again. I was in total bliss!
It felt sooooo goooooood to linger there just below the surface, feeling the soft quagmire completely surrounding my body and encompassing my head, constantly digging away the muck that repeatedly kept oozing back over my mouth, that I wanted to stay like that forever!
But, I was doing a dramatic sinking video, so I had to finish my submergence. So, I took a deep breath and pulled myself down deeper, paused for a moment, and then let out some air to hiss to the surface.
With the submergence scene finished, it was time to re-emerge! So, I worked myself up higher, dug the ooze away from my mouth, and took in a deep breath, only to get a mouthful of tasteless mud instead, like a mouthful of well-whipped & creamed mashed potatoes!
Apparently, the softer, oozier mud from beneath the thicker top layer was brought up to the surface with my head when I was resurfacing, and I was clearly not high enough for that soft consistency of the muck, only for if it all had the consistency of the top layer!
My mouth was so full, that when I tried spitting it out, some of it was too far back in my mouth, and wound up being swallowed!
In addition to constantly spitting, I tried to force myself to cough and tried a "forced gag" to try and get the mud in the back of my mouth out! But the residual mud stuck to the back of the roof of my mouth, clinging there like a gritty peanut butter, only being able to be touched by the back of my tongue with no way of pushing it forward, and was eventually swallowed too. I was concerned about what kinds of microbes or other things were in the mud that I had ingested, and hoped that I wouldn't get sick!
But, anyways, I continued working myself higher up out of the mire, wiping the mud from my body as I went. I turned around, pulled myself closer to shore, and then turned around again to work myself the rest of the way out, pushing the mud off my body as I went, sitting on the grass on the edge as I extracted my legs and feet and scraped the mud off them, back into the bog. I then headed to the water to quickly clean my hands and arms, and then returned to stop the video and turn off the camera, briefly lifting my swim goggles to see better.
Now, it was time to get cleaned off. This time the water felt warmer thanks to the sun, which was coming in and out from behind the cloud during the video. Since I was muddy from head to toe, I had to submerge myself in the water, which was shallow. I did all the usual stuff, including using the floating vegetation as "Nature's Scrub Brush" to loosen the muddy film, and splashing water over my back to clean it off there. I cleaned my swim goggles and swim cap, setting them on some yellow waterlily leaves on shore, and removed my junk shorts, this time not having trouble removing the string. I briefly exited the pond and placed them all on some alder branches further inland, before returning to the water to finish cleaning off. Then I air-dried, walking around further away from the pond to a part of the meadow past a patchy line of alders, where it was drier, since there was more heat radiating from dry ground than from wet ground.
All dry, I got dressed and after changing the camera's picture size back to 4:3 (14M 4320x3240), took some photos of my bog, starting at 3:04 pm, now with
two disturbed spots:
2026 08 18 1R Crescent.jpg
2026 08 18 1S Crescent.jpg
Now, I was all chilled again, and had to wait to warm up before having my third sinking session of the day, where I would mush up all of the surface and the weeds to keep them from taking over. While I was waiting, I headed to the north side of the pond, taking some more photos of the exposed mud:
2026 08 18 1T Crescent.jpg
2026 08 18 1U Crescent.jpg
2026 08 18 1V Crescent.jpg
2026 08 18 1W Crescent.jpg
Once again, I decided to go for one final walk up the sideroad again, past the same pond with the ring bog, and once I started to warm up again I turned around. On the way back, I headed down to the south end of the ring bog pond to take a closer look at it, where the cattle had trampled a black muddy patch on the shore there. On the eastern part further away, I couldn't tell if there was some mud exposed between the main shore and the ring bog, or if it was just algae.
It appeared to be just algae, and I could see just water to the distant shoreline of the center pond to the north. I headed back to the road and returned to my bog location for my final sinking session!
I got undressed, and the first thing I did was head over to the north side, and plopped myself down on the narrow section of undisturbed mud that was between my first and second sinks. Laying horizontally and facing south, I plunged my arms down into the bottomless softness and struggled, feeling the front of my body being cradled as it rose up my sides. I bent my knees a bit, and struggled, feeling the doughy ooze licking over my rear and around my lower back! As my chin started to press down into the surface of the suffocating mire, my stimulation reached the exploding point for the second time this day!
Since I was muddy on my front up to my chin, I had thought about cleaning off in the water before mushing up the mud, but decided that I might get too chilled. So, I decided to just get down to business! I mushed the mud in front of me, on the south side, before getting up and mushing the mud both in the middle and around me on the north side. I then worked my way clockwise, mushing up the mud and pushing all the weeds under the surface. It was so thick in most spots that I had to work myself out and then walk around the edge to the next spot and then take the plunge. Sometimes I was able to work my legs forward as well to move through it, digging mud from the front of me and pushing it behind me to get to the edge. I also smoothed the surface as I went. When I reached the south side, I was starting to feel a little bit chilled, which I attributed to the fact that it was being shaded by the grass, so it didn't get all the sun.
Also, I noticed that the shadow of one of the trees to the west was over the south half of the bog, which didn't help either. Once I got the south side mushed and smoothed out, I worked to smooth out other parts that seemed to be uneven. All the time, I kept myself up around just past waist deep, to reduce the chilled feeling, the mud higher up my front drying up on my skin.
Wanting to spend some more time lingering in the mire to savour the experience, I first worked myself out, pushing the mud off my body as I went, cleaned my hands off in the pond, and went to check the time, although I was wondering if it would be a mistake walking up my path all muddy.
I checked the time, and it was some time around 5 pm, and I felt that I did have enough time for one final limited sink!
From the north side, I jumped into the middle, landing waist deep, and faced myself westward as I lingered, repeatedly working myself back up each time the batterlike ooze sucked me down deeper! I was feeling constantly mildly chilled, but the feel of the bog was winning out.
I was first in the shade, but the shadow was moving away, and eventually, I was in the half-shade, and then back in the full sun again!
But then, another shadow started to reach the north side of the bog, at which point, I decided to call it quits! So, I worked myself through the mire, working my legs slowly forward, until I got close to the north side, where I was able to pull myself closer. Then, I turned around and pulled myself right up to the shore, and then after lifting myself up slightly, I let go and loved the feel of myself slowly sinking back into the ooze. Finally, I worked myself all the way out, pushing the mud off my body back into the bog. I was also smoothing out the surface of the mire during my escape from the center as well.
Now, it was time to clean off one final time. But this time, I had to scrub the front of my body from the chin down to my waist harder, since the mud had dried on. I noticed that where the mud had dried on my skin, there was a bit of a rash, something that I had forgotten about whenever mud dried on my skin. I went through the usual cleanup routine, before heading to shore to dry off. But, once I was dry, when I headed back to my things, I felt something wet, and noticed mud smeared on my right leg/hip!
It turned out that when I checked the time earlier, some mud brushed off onto a bush and I now had to return to the water to wash it off!
Once I dried myself again, I returned to my things, avoiding the muddy branches on the north side of the path. I got dressed, and starting at 5:48 pm, took a couple of photos of my bog:
2026 08 18 1X Crescent.jpg
2026 08 18 1Y Crescent.jpg
I sat down and watched my video on my camera before I was ready to prepare to leave. I switched memory cards in my camera and gathered my stuff together, retrieving my swim goggles, swim cap and junk shorts, having to return back to the alder tree to get the string as well. Most went into my bag except for my junk shorts, which were wet. I headed back to my bike, put my stuff away, having to put my junk shorts separately in the saddlebag with my drinks. Then I was off, snacking on a Sweet & Salty bar while on the main road, which was annoyingly full of washboard. I had just begun to head down the main hill a little ways when my brother drove up. It turned out he decided to leave at a time he knew I would be heading back, and so I was able to end my bikeride without coasting all the way down the hill and rattling my neck.
Overall it was quite a wonderful day, with better mud conditions than I had over the previous two years!
I was so glad to have finally enjoyed my first submergence sink of the season!
Looking at the state of my bog, it looked like I could have started my adventures a few weeks earlier after all! But then, I was trying to get a certain amount of weeding done on the farm, and figured that it wouldn't be until early to mid August before it would be exposed, like in the previous years. I never had any ill effects from swallowing the mud, and I did have a small leech on me during cleanup (first?). I may have had some tinier baby leeches as well that rolled up into tiny dustlike balls. I had hoped that skipping most of the descent would make things easy on my neck. But, unfortunately, over the following days, it started to crunch and felt a little bit sensitive, with some soreness from muscles for several days, giving way to more intermittent soreness deeper in, with the crunching going on, even after a week, not looking like it would go away completely before my next bikeride! I just kept my fingers crossed, hoping that it wouldn't be an issue next time, and looked forward to my next adventure!
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
But, the month had been marred by wildfire smoke, which filtered the sun at times. 