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The messy adventures of John Marsh |
Today was my first trip out into my swamp since the hurricane. I didn’t notice any major relandscaping since the storm. The tides are not very low this time of year, and today was no exception. I still took advantage of the low tide and enjoyed some deep, inviting swamp mud. I shot video, but the video didn’t meet my standards for commercial video, so I threw together a highlights clip and I’m attaching it to this post for everyone to enjoy.
My internet service has finally come back on-line, after Hurricane Irene. I’m not sure just how much rain I got here, but it rained for over 24 hours. Here is a photo of the pond, after the hurricane …
I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, as I lost access to the Internet for 4 days. As you can see in this photo, most of my trees are still standing. None of my buildings or facilities were damaged. I hope everyone else fared as well.
Doug,
You have SO much experience out in the tidal mud maybe you can share your best mudding gear> ? You are bearfoot? so no surf shoe recos.? Any cock constraining rings, etc in addition to your hogtied ropes, etc.. If so, rubber, neoprene, etc… ever wear singlets?
any tools for digging in tidal muck? any recos on kayak gear for mudding?
I have been out doing similar escapades, but not with your frequency, which I applaud!
Always looking for new tips and insight.
Last… any way we can post pics of our muck romps to your site?
Mudsleuth..
I know most of you are here for my mud exploits, so I’ll keep this short. Although there has been some heavy rain in the area, my yard has only received a half-dozen or so brief showers that have served to keep the grass from dying, but that’s about all. Here is a photo of my pond. I would normally be swimming in this pond to cool off in the summer!
The pond on Aug 21, 2011
I’m still hoping for a tropical storm to bring me at least a few inches of rain. It will take a lot to bring things back to normal.
My next update will probably be to announce a new movie clip, unless I happen to have a mud adventure before then. There won’t be any good low tides for the rest of August and September.
I went canoeing today around 17:00. It was threatening to rain, so I packed everything in watertight containers. The trip was uneventful. The tide never got very low, so I didn’t really go mudding. I did do some exploring, and I set up the video camera a couple of times for some short clips. Here are some frames from the video. I’m not sure if the video will ever get published. It is nothing to get excited about.
Today was another hot, humid day with a mediocre low tide, but I’ve been out in worse conditions. Heather Blake came along to keep me company and operate the cameras, which means I came back with some great still photos and some awesome video.
Heather hogtied me and I struggled for my life in the treacherous swamp mud (while she suffered in the intense heat, operating the camera). I had a pretty good time in the mud. It wasn’t one of my really deep spots, but I was tied up, so it didn’t need to be very deep for me to get completely covered.
Cleanup was uneventful. We packed up and headed back, since the weather was threatening to get ugly. We got rained on just a little before we got off the water. Getting rained on after mudding in the salt marsh can be a good thing.
We went swamping, late on August 1, and early on August 2. Dolphin dropped in for a visit on the first, so we took advantage of the available low tides to play in the swamp. The tides were less than optimal, but we found a couple places to play. Our time window was limited to about one hour on each trip, but we avoided the midday heat, so it was pleasant, just getting out on the water.
We had Heather Blake with us, taking photos and shooting some short video clips. Heather took the photo shown here. She got out of bed at 04:00 so she could be at my place at 05:00 to join Dolphin and me for breakfast and head out with us at 06:00. We were on the water before the sun peeked over the horizon. It was pretty, but nobody should be out that early… nobody. Heather would probably agree.
The drought situation has not improved on the home front. I am hoping that Tropical Storm Emily will swing close to my coastline and bring a few inches of rain, but it doesn’t look likely. My pond gets lower and lower each day. It can’t get much lower before it will dry up completely and force the occupants to relocate or die.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. The last time I went out at low tide, there was no low tide. Yesterday, there was a very good low tide. The tides are not the most predictable thing, but I am not disappointed too often.
So, if you’ve been keeping up, you remember that, the last time I went out, I discovered a new spot I wanted to check out. Well, yesterday I explored that spot. The first thing I noticed was that it had a great area in which to set up the camera for shooting, and water for cleanup was relatively convenient. Once I got into the mud, I discovered that it got pretty thick a couple of feet down, and there was some timber below the surface that obstructed sinking in a few places. The area is quite large though, and I didn’t have the time or energy to explore all of it. I am pretty sure it will go on my mudding site list under the heading of “great for shooting an afternoon video”, because of the excellent location for setting up a camera, adjacent to the mud, where the setting sun would be behind the camera.
I did shoot a video. The stills in this post are from the video, which will probably be released in about 10 days. I still have a swamp bondage video to release before it, which will come out this week.
Well, drought conditions have caused the level of my pond to drop to the point where there is very little water left. I decided to take advantage of the low water level to clean out some of the debris at the bottom of the pond, and also to dig a little deeper in hopes of hitting some water. I dressed in latex briefs and rubber boots for this task. By the time I was finished, I was covered from head to toe in mud and dirt. I shot some video while I was working, and took some photos when I was done.
