wet and muddy weeding and hiking
Posted by Zonie on April 01, 2024 at 05:06:07
It was a peculiar week at work. The septic system backed up, and it took two days to get a plumber. Anticipating this, I took my camp shovel and dug an impromptu pit latrine south of the glass bead shed, out of public view. On top of this the night shift foreman was sick Monday night, my new assistant the other Kevin was out with food poisoning Tuesday, and the new glass beader, Steven, was out with food poisoning Thursday (I think I know the source--they both ate at the same convenience store the night before they fell ill).
With all this lost time, we fell behind. Rex Earp telephoned me Thursday night asking about his parts. I heard a child screaming in the background, so I assume he was calling from home. It's comforting that someone from such a notorious family could have a normal family life. I found out that they were done but not yet packaged, so I told him that they would likely be shipped the next day. That seemed to satisfy him.
The street by our facility was finally re-paved two months after it was scheduled, and the degreaser still isn't working. I think civilizations fall not by catastrophe but by the death of one thousand cuts. I sometimes wonder if in Fifth Century Rome someone was thinking, "We have a migrant crisis with the Visigoths and the Vandals. Are they ever going to fix that aqueduct? My chariot hit that pothole on the Appian Way for the fifth time. You can't get scribes these days. Nobody wants to learn to read and write."
The good news is that we had a very powerful Pacific cold front move in last night. Yesterday afternoon it was sunny and 87°. This morning it was raining and 52°. I had a task to perform--removing the alley weeds. With the spring drought (and I'm confident we will have it eventually), they become a fire hazard. A rainy day was perfect for that. The weeds come up very easily when it's muddy, and the cold rain meant I got to wear my oilskin drover coat.
I was enjoying the pounding of the rain on a coat that was advertised as waterproof but really wasn't, kneeling in the mud, pulling up large bunches of weeds and putting them in my portable bin. I took a break for lunch and went back to it. I didn't finish the task, but the bins in the neighborhood were mostly full. Garbage day has been moved to Wednesday, so I had to leave some room for the neighbors to use the bins for other items. Still, I made a lot of progress under ideal conditions. Nice rain, nice soft mud, no bugs, no rattlesnakes.
At around two o'clock it stopped raining, and I put away the coat and decided to do a bit of mud hiking at Reach 11's west segment. I started on the northern path and found quite a bit of mud on the trails and in the back country. The mesquite thickets were damp but not very muddy.
I headed to the south trail and enjoyed the extra thick and extensive mud under the HWY 51 overpass. I then noticed someone else enjoying the mud. A young man with a mountain bicycle with fat tires was riding deliberately through the deep mud. It's always good to find a fellow enthusiast.
I doubled back eastward along the south trail. I found something especially enjoyable about the fresh mud of that heavy clay trail right after the rain. There are many spots that look wet but firm but which, when you step, turn out to be deep and squishy--quite a pleasant surprise.
I decided to head back north and explore some of the thick vegetation by the trails. I was pleased to find in some places it was agreeably boggy. Finally I was fatigued and headed back to my car, washing my boots and jeans in the parking lot puddle.
We're expecting more rain tonight. I'll try not to get too muddy tomorrow morning. I have to see the cardiologist. Maybe a good April Fool's prank would be to drink a can of Monster before the appointment and see what that does to my pulse, blood pressure and cardiac rhythm.