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cooling off in the mesquite swamp


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Posted by Zonie on August 15, 2021 at 06:46:25

We've been under a flash flood watch since Thursday. Friday was partly cloudy and calm, so I didn't think much of it. Shortly before I was to leave work at 9:30, I noticed lightning in the northeastern sky. I advised Enrique to put the parts on pallets under cover. He said he had to wait until Nick came to see what his orders are. Fair enough, now that Enrique's on the night shift and Omer is still maling..er..recovering from "long COVID," Nick is his boss, not I. I hadn't driven away for five minutes before I hit a wall of rain. There was thunder and heavy rain the rest of the night all over the metro area. Some sections of freeway had to be shut down as cars were stranded.

In the morning I had some clearing up to do in the back yard, but I drove to Reach 11 eventually. I had run out of worn out work socks, so I wore a pair of old dress socks from when I did office work in the 1990's. I also decided, as I wasn't going over any truly rugged terrain, that flooded wellies might feel nice. Apart from that I had a torn button-down and a torn pair of overalls I was willing to trash.

When I arrived the sun was starting to emerge from the clouds and the cool of the morning was being replaced by steam bath weather. I located a deep but relatively clean puddle, flooded my wellies, and sat down in it to soak my overalls and shirt. I then used my cap to pour water over my head and neck.

Then I headed for the mud puddles. The were a more abundant than the last time I went there, and I did my boot heel engineering of connecting the puddles to improve drainage. Of course the ground was uneven, and I was never quite sure how deep my boots would sink in the mud, so I had lots of fun balancing.

I then went to a secluded mud hole and had a good wallow, but soon the sun heated it to the point that it wasn't helpful. I would need a shaded mud hole. Then it occurred to me that about half a mile to the west was a section of the mesquite thicket that hadn't burned down, and I might be able to find shade there.

As I descended towards it, I started going through some very thick gumbo mud, sinking way past my ankles. I even saw coyote tracks that had gone in deep, showing that one of these animals that are light on their feet in most circumstances came close to miring. I contemplated the engineering of this. I weigh about ten times as much as a typical coyote, have half as many feet but much larger feet. Still it wasn't many laborious paces later until I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl due to the mesquite branches blocking the path. At that point there was visible water on the surface, and I was in a mesquite swamp.

There I was in the shade, and under a few inches of water was a very thick layer of fine clay mud. I had a great time mixing it with the surface layer and making a great deep wallow. There were some mesquite thorns, but denim overalls are great protection and also very absorbent of water and mud. Best yet the deep clay was actually cool, and I rolled around in that for quite some time without being overheated.

Eventually it was time to crawl back out, and I got to a place where the trees were further spaced apart and I might stand, but I found it quite difficult with the heavy weight of mud on my clothing and the sliding of my feet in the slop. Fortunately I have very strong legs, and once I got in the right position I managed to stand. Then I struggled to slog back out of the mud and remembered a technique that worked in deep snow, to reduce the time of the return trip by stepping in one's own boot tracks, and it worked just as well.

The next problem was that my hands didn't have traction to open the Gatorade bottle. I solved that by finding a water hole and rinsing them, and after having a drink decided to field bathe for the journey back. On the way back I inspected the progress on the drainages and made some improvements.

When I got back I found I had been out about six hours, and in that entire time hadn't encountered anybody. I had plans for the evening that required bathing and a change of clothes, so I didn't stop anywhere on the way home and accomplished my other errands after I had taken off the mud gear to be trashed. To be kept were only the underwear, the wellies and the cap. I just hosed those down in the back yard.

All this rain has had an unexpected benefit. The August water bill was only $105. It's usually closer to $300 this time of year.





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