Day 2 at the marsh

The morning after I survived that first rough day learning how to hand-pull sphagnum moss, I woke up to a beautiful sunshiny happy day. My muscles were sore from swinging the pulling hook all the day before in the wind and rain, but I was optimistic and I couldn't wait to see what the marsh looked like in the sunshine. It was gorgeous! It was even more beautiful that I could have imagined it would be.
The marsh was very wet. Marshes generally are, but not always. This being early spring, there was a lot of spring runoff still around and we were generally standing in three to six inches of water on top of the marsh. My borrowed-from-a-friend boots from the day before hadn't worked so well, they were the wrong size. At the end of that first day, the foreman fixed me up with a pair of right-size knee boots from a guy who didn't work out, (that happened a lot). The boots actually fit me. It was a whole different experience.
We had problems right away in the morning, just getting out to where we were hand-pulling. We learned from this mistake after this, but we were trying to work in too wet of conditions. The marsh "softens-up" when there is too much water present. The cats kept breaking through and we kept getting stuck. We had three cats on the marsh and the first two got stuck right away. I was on a boat, trying to figure out this whole balancing-on-a-big-flat-board-being-jerked-behind-a-cat thing, when the second cat got stuck. The foreman told the driver pulling me and two other co-workers to leave the cat (and us) there and come over. So he walked over to the foreman about 30 yards away and helped to get that cat out. No sooner were they out and then they were stuck again, both cats.
The foreman hollered over to me to bring the cat over and pull them out.
Excuse me, this is early morning of day 2, I have never driven a cat before. My instructor is 30 yards away and I'm not hearing real good. It's windy. Why does he think I can drive it? And, until this second, I didn't know I even WOULD be driving it.
I drove my grandpas tractors. I have plowed fields. This was quite a while ago. But he was hollering to me to get in the seat and bring it over. So I got in the seat and one of my co-workers told me the basic idea. It is very, very simple. I asked him if he wanted to go (since he knew how to drive), he said no, he didn't drive the cats, only the tractors. So I went.
My foreman motioned to me where to turn around. I pulled him out and then he told me to go pull the other guy out. I was like, 'oh,' because I thought I was driving to him and he was taking over. But, I went and pulled the other guy out. I didn't get stuck either time. The foreman told me to go hook the boat I had been on, and take the guys in. So I left to head back to the boat, went about half the distance and I see my boat-riders waving at me to turn around back toward the other cats. Both were stuck again. So I went and pulled both out again.
I was so nervous about driving the cat in the first place, that I was totally tuned in to what I was doing. That very first day I developed a "feel" for the marsh. All the time I worked there, I was never able to teach it to even one other person.
I pulled the boat in and while I was driving them in, with the other cats following me in, I was the happiest girl in the world! I already LOVED that job. It was hard work, but I really liked the adventure. Already, I had a passion for the work.
A while later, we came back out and starting hand-pulling in another area. I was working with the foreman. One of the guys hauling in a full boat got stuck. The foreman had to leave me alone to go help. He told me to pull the spot I was working on, then take a break until he got back with the cat. Everyone left and I was all alone in the middle of this huge beautiful marsh. I was right where I was supposed to be. I was so very happy that I had survived that first crappy day, or I would have never gotten to that wonderful second day.
I knew I could do this job. I was working outdoors. My crew-mates respected me because I worked along side them. I had satisfaction that I had not gotten stuck when I pulled the other cats out, while experienced drivers were dropping into holes (small ones, mind you) left and right. I was a mosser! And a sweet part of this was not being afraid out on the marsh, when I'd had such a tremendous fear of any marsh, swamp, bog from my hunting dip in the marsh years ago.
Two years prior to this, I had what I shall call a "day-dream" for lack of a better term. In it, I fell forward into a Christmas wreath lying on the ground. As I fell it widened into a round field of knee-high grass surrounded by a ring of trees. I went into it face foward, but somehow, I seemingly flipped over without noticing and landed on my feet in the field. Then it was over.
Day 2, after pulling the spot the foreman had told me to, I stopped to smoke a ciggarette. I heard the cat arrive at the landing, nearly a mile from me, and shut off. Silence. I was musing on my good fortune at having a found a job that suited me so well, when I looked all around me and realized--I was standing in a circular field of grass, surrounded by a ring of trees! Wow! I had the most intense deja-vu. I had known a little about moss, but nothing about sphagnum. I didn't see any moss in my day-dream. All I saw was the grass and the trees. But I'd been HERE all the same. I knew I was right where I was supposed to be.
We left that marsh within 48 hours. It was just too wet to work there. We moved to a different, much drier marsh. I worked on many spots on that big marsh over the years, but I was never in exactly that place again.

Bigfoot

Bigfoot
I saw a bigfoot near Hayward, WI in the fall of 1982. I was driving to town along Hwy. 77 about 25 miles from town. It was very lightly snowing. I stopped for three racoons crossing the road and saw something big in my rearview mirror. It looked like bigfoot crossing the highway a few yards behind my car. I turned around to look and it still looked like bigfoot. It was huge, 7 1/2 to 8 ft tall, thick and wide. I believe it was a male. It was slightly reddish brown, like Scottish Highland cattle color, only with more highlights. It only took three steps to cross the highway from shoulder to shoulder. It did not look at me. It just strode across the highway. It did not look like anything remotely related to the ape family, it walked very straight. It was not a big guy in a ghillie suit. It looked a lot more like a wookie from Star Wars than it looked like the subject of the famous Patteron video. But it was different from both. The head was flatter somehow.
There were no houses around there. I didn't report it to any officials, although I thought about it. I was not frightened at all because it ignored me completely.
A few weeks later, my ex-boyfriend walked into the bar where I worked as white as a sheet. I asked him what was wrong. He said I wouldn't believe him. I asked, "Did you see bigfoot by chance?" He acknowledged he had. I was offended that he had disregarded my own sighting so far as to completely FORGET about it. But I totally understood why he was hesitant to talk about it openly. He had seen his on Telemark Road between Hwy. 77 and the community of Cable. He saw his RIGHT in front of his car. It stopped and looked at him and then stepped off to the side as he passed. It was night, but he said he saw it clearly and it's fur was pitch black. He had seen many bears. It was NOT a bear. I knew it wasn't the same one I had seen. Mine had not been black.

Possible bigfoot
Not many weeks after that, my friend Debbie and I were on Telemark Road heading to Cable to pick up my ex-boyfriend, who'd called and needed a ride. It was dark. In the headlights we saw a pitch black bigfoot-shaped figure leap out of a huge pine tree into a deep ditch beside the road. It had to be a 35-foot drop. I was driving and had to keep my eyes on the road, and she looked but couldn't see anything as we passed right by where we had seen it leap to. I do not know what it was. I didn't see it clearly. But it was bigfoot-shaped.

Don't know what the hell it was
The most scared I have ever been during any of my outdoor adventures happened not 100-yards from my house in 1999. I was living near Neillsville, WI. It was gun-deer season. I had to work that day, so I did not go out until afternoon. I walked down an old logging road to a small knoll along a dry creek bed and three different wooded sections. Many deer trails cut through there. When I first walked up, there had been about 10 squirrels scurrying about digging in the shallow snowcover rooting for acorns. As squirrels do, they stopped their business to see if I was a threat. As soon as I stopped to stand on the rise for a while, they went back to their squirrel business.
I stood there for about a half an hour. I saw one small doe go by. I only had a buck tag. Not long after the doe passed, I heard a heavy two-footed (sounded like a big, big man) crunch coming down along the dry creek bed. I assumed it was another hunter. He was coming somewhat slowly, but not being too quiet, so I thought some of the neighbors might be making a drive. I assumed that once he saw me standing there on the knoll in bright BLAZE orange, that he would just move along as polite, courteous hunters do. That's when I noticed that the squirrels had frozen in their places. They didn't run for the trees. They were all still and quiet as a mouse. They just crouched right down where they were. I flagged on that and thought it was really weird. They had let me get right up to them before they stopped to check me out. I could not see this other hunter, although I was thinking I should be able to soon, because he sounded like he was about 50 yards away. I could still hear him moving towards me, not directly, but at an angle. I thought for the second time how strange the squirrels were, when I heard one more crunch and snap of a twig, and it stopped moving. Now, from where I heard the last crunch, snap, I SHOULD have been able to see this other "hunter." It sounded like it came from this area about 35 yards from me and "he" should have been between me and these short pine trees.
I saw nothing and no one. I was still under the impression it was a hunter. I was angry that I was in plain sight and he stopped nearby me in the first place. I was really annoyed that I could not see him, he should have been wearing blaze orange too. What kind of idiot is skulking about in thick woods during deer gun season without blaze orange on? And I was becoming increasingly unnerved that the squirrels were so frightened that they STILL weren't moving, even though a few minutes had passed since he, it, whatever, wasn't making any noise now. I guess it was right about then I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and I started thinking maybe it wasn't a hunter. All the years I've been in the outdoors, this was the first time that I'd ever felt threatened by something. I was carrying a single-shot 20-gauge shotgun and I was wishing I had more firepower. My eyes were darting around, trying to catch any movement. I kept nervously glancing behind me. And I started doing the 'I'm scared and I'm getting shakey' thing. Not convulsing, just nervously shaking. I was too afraid to turn my back on the last place I had heard it. I was straining for ANY sound. It was silent.
And then I smelled it. It was the most dreadful, rotten meat, putrid smell. I really started shaking then. I had my gun across my arms, ready to shoot, but knowing that if I needed to, it was going to have to be CLOSE, because I was trembling, and I knew my aim would be bad.
I knew it was not a hunter. Doe-in-heat and skunk smell cover-ups are not Chanel No. 5, but no HUMAN hunter ever smelled like this unless he was dead for some time.
I stood there so horribly frightened for another several minutes, wanting so desperately to leave and too frightened to do so. I didn't want to turn my back to it, and I certainly didn't want it to follow me home, 100 yards up the trail to where my children and I slept.
And that is when, Heenjasep, my boyfriends black lab came down the trail behind me to investigate. As soon as I saw the dog, it was resolved. I would leave because if it was a creepy hunter, I HAD to take the dog back to the house for his safety. And if it was something OTHER, then the dog would protect me. So I called the dog to me. And we left without incident.
I had trouble sleeping that night. I just couldn't shut my mind off. I was off the next day, so bright and early, to face my fear, I went right back down there and walked all around checking for tracks. There were none. My tracks and deer tracks, that was it. I cannot explain that. But my experience was and is completely real to me. I invoke the unnatural behavior of the squirrels as my only evidence. I am STILL creeped out by it and have had chills and shivers just telling the tale.
I told my friend (a different) Debi about it. She is Oneida. In her experience the bigfoots are beneficial beings. In Ho Chunk oral tradition, there is a story about an old man who was injured in the woods and suffering from dehydration. A bigfoot brought him water for three days in a rolled up leaf, until he was able to gain his strength and hobble home. This happened a few miles from where I had my creepy encounter.
I logged this experience into my bigfoot memories because of the heaviness and the two-footed walk of whatever it was. But whatever it was, I bet it eats squirrels.

Marsh Sighting
I didn't see it myself. Our fancy moss-pulling machine was broken down and being fixed during a hot summer afternoon in 2001, so we were hand-pulling moss on the far side of the marsh from our landing where we pulled the full boats into. This was in the Bear Bluff area. I felt like someone was watching us and I kept looking around. My co-worker asked what was up, so I told him. He said Randolf, the older guy who worked with the tractors and end loader on the landing, was probably looking with his binoculars to see how it was going. A little after that, we decided to go in for lunch. As we got close enough to see the landing, sure enough, Randolf was standing there, looking out at us with his binoculars. My co-worker, looking quite satisfied, nudged me and said, "I told ya." I felt a little stupid, but glad my intuition of being watched was working.
When we got in to shore, Randolf walked over and asked us if we'd seen anything. None of us knew what he was talking about. We said no, what did he mean? He saw a huge, tall, upright black figure standing in the woods, not far from where we were, watching us. As soon as we left, it walked over to where we had been. Randolf hurried to his truck to get his binoculars, but it was gone before he got back. He did not know what it was, "But it was NO bear," he said. I kept asking, did he think it was a bigfoot? He just laughed and said he didn't know. We couldn't find any tracks different than ours when we went back out. We were all wearing mossing boots that made our feet appear bigger anyway. He showed us where he had seen it. Funny thing to me, that's not the direction I'd been looking when I'd felt watched.

Breaking through

Many years ago, I developed a very serious fear of marshes and bogs.
I was deer hunting with two guy friends 30 miles east of Hayward, Wis. a few days before Thanksgiving. It was snowing and the wind was cold. We hadn't seen anything and decided since the wind was picking up and the snow was getting heavier that we would head back home. It was about a five-mile walk.
My friends, who were more familiar with the area, suggested we could shorten that considerably by cutting across this big marsh. We would come out to the highway and it would be much easier walking the highway than by going through the woods. I was game.
Half-way across the marsh, which was covered in ice, I suddenly broke through and fell up to my breastbone in the frigid water. My right foot was supported on the branch of a submerged log, with my left arm leaning on the edge of the ice. My left leg was swinging free, I couldn't touch bottom. As soon as I broke through, I instictively held my gun up high.
My buddies, who were both thinner and lighter, stepped forward and took my 20-gauge shotgun. Even though I was in a potentially life-threatening situation, I was very proud that I had not dropped my gun or got it wet.
My friends thought that maybe together they could pull me out. I knew they could not. All that was holding me up was the tip of that branch. I could only somewhat support myself on the edge of the ice because that branch was taking my weight. All I had was a toe hold on that wonderful log that had laid there, for who knows how long, waiting to save me.
I was afraid that as soon as they tried to pull me out, my weight would combine with theirs and they would break through.
I have hunted all my life and I was fully aware that this was a life-threating situation. I was not about to risk my friends. The ice was supporting them.
I was not afraid. I KNEW I was getting out of there. If I had been meant to die, I would have already missed that precious toe hold, gone down deep and perhaps not have been able to find the opening in the ice. I had already been spared, I just had to figure out HOW to get out of there as fast as possible. And I knew I only had one shot. Once I kicked off that branch, I would not be able to find it again.
I told my friends to step back and give me some room.
I had only been in the water for about two minutes when I bounced hard on the branch, aiming for a nearby clump of grass and semi-lunged out of the water. The lip of the ice broke just a few inches more, but as I grabbed the clump of dry grass, the taller one of my friends reached over and grabbed my shirt near the shoulder and tugged hard and Tah Dah! I was out!
I was thoroughly soaked through, but I had been from the very first second I went into the water, so I was glad I had not panicked and that I had taken the time to assess my situation.
I crawled a few feet. I would have crawled even farther, but my wet clothes were sticking to the ice and I knew that the temperature had dropped more than I had previously thought. So I stood up, and the ice supported me. I took my gun and we started walking.
I was not cold. The adrenaline coursing through my veins and my rapidly pounding heart kept me plenty warm. But I was literally not out of the woods yet. We still had half the marsh to cross. I hadn't really had time to be afraid while I was in the water. I was focused on survival then. But with every step I took toward the treeline, I was wracked with the fear I would fall through again. I did bust through twice more, but the water was much shallower, below the knee on both occasions.
We made it to the highway and starting walking. The wind was coming straight at us, stinging our faces with snow. I was covered in a thin sheet of ice that was crunching and breaking as I walked. The ice was thick on my hiking boots and in the folds of my pants around my knees. My legs were so tired. That ice was damn heavy.
When we first got to the highway, I asked how far was it to our road? "Only about a mile," the eldest of my friends replied. Two miles later, I was utterly miserable. "How much farther?" I asked. "We're almost there." he answered. I knew we were not. I didn't recognize it as anywhere close. I know things look differently zipping by at 55 mph, but I knew it was still a long walk. I was tired. My legs were burning from the exertion. I wanted to stop for a few minutes and rest.
My friend, thank the good Lord for him, told me I was just a stupid girl. This is why girls should never be allowed to hunt. In fact, he was never going hunting with me again. I should just stay home and do girl stuff like baking cookies and knitting and leave the hunting to men!
I was so pissed off! I was irate! I stomped, crunch, crunch, crunch! All the way to our road. Mad as hell and pissed off to high Heaven at my FORMER fishing/hunting buddy who I completely and utterly HATED and would NEVER like again! As soon as we got to our road, he turned to me with a charming smile and said, "See. I knew you could make it."
I realized that he had saved me. He made me mad and that gave me the energy and the motivation I needed to trudge on. I completely forgave him for his comments. They were designed to motivate me.
I was very, very afraid of marshes for many years after that. I knew what could happen, and just how fast it could happen.
Looking back now, after having spent so much time on marshes and bogs, I can see that we picked thee most dangerous route across that marsh all those years ago. We were thinking to walk across the ice where it looked thicker, instead of through the snow and clumps of grass. But marshes have more water where the peat layer in thinner. So we were actually crossing the holes in the bog where the water is the deepest.

Last night's storm

Severe thunderstorms went through Monroe and Jackson counties, Wisconsin last night. The storms featured 70mph winds and hail up to two and a half inches in diameter. The first hail balls that fell at my place were golf-ball sized, then dropped down to quarter, dime and pea-sized. My co-workers reported the opposite. Theirs started out small and got progressively bigger.
I just had a few branches down in my yard. Neighbors had their cars totalled by hail, numerous windows broken, trees down on their homes, garages, sheds and vehicles. The hail decimated corn crops and cranberries. Gardens were obliterated. There were unconfirmed reports of tornadoes. It is the major topic of discussion in the area.
In Tomah, a gas pump was knocked over creating a leak. Many power lines were downed. I was without power for about five hours.
A co-worker told me how frightening it was when it went from daylight to dark in a matter of moments. Another co-worker had all his rain gutters shattered by the golf-ball sized hail. Many people could not get out of their driveways due to downed trees.

Dragonflies

I have always loved dragonflies - for all the usual reasons that dragonfly lovers do. But I especially love them since I worked out at the marsh. It wasn't all fun and games out there. Somedays the work was hard. Sometimes the weather was too cold, too rainy, too hot, too windy and all the other ways weather is. Equipment would break down. Co-workers would slack off or bitch and complain. Trees would fall over unexpectedly. Lightning was a special danger. But the WORST, most horrible condition of all was the deer fly hatch. We had horse flys too, which were much bigger and bit much harder, but there were far fewer of those. The deer fly hatch was horrible. Some marshes didn't seem to have as many. And like any other species, a variety of conditions come into play. But when the conditions were good for deer flies, it meant it was bad for us.
The main hatch lasted about two weeks. You would see and feel them before and after that, but the hatch was unbelieveably horrible when it was bad. Imagine THOUSANDS of biting flies swarming around your head, biting through your clothing in every conceivable place. I know it was literally thousands around me because I could see thousands around my co-workers. Buzzing all around you. Flying behind your glasses and biting near your eyes. Flying in your nose and mouth. Constant and unforgiveable. Agony.
I wore a big scarf over my head, which helped a little. The only place I did not get bitten was where my leather gloves and my rubber boots were. We tried EVERYTHING. All we could do was cover up in multiple layers of clothing and endure it. Now mind you, the hatch is in the heat of summer. When it's the hotest. It really sucked.
One day during the worst part of the worst hatch, it was too miserable to work with handtools. The temperature was around 98 degrees F and it was too hot to be trying to swat at flies all day. The foreman had us using the cats to haul the loaded boats back to the landing where other crew members were using equipment to unload the moss and push it into piles.
I was far out on a rather dry marsh and these cleat tracks cats go pretty slow when you're on a marsh, because you don't want to damage the marsh by spinning it up. You just want to cruise along slowly. The flies were demonic. I was miserable. I was covered in welts from the days before. I hate flies and their nation into perpetuity because of those days.
I was vehemently cursing them and worthlessly swatting at them, when I happened by a small stand of tamarak trees near the woods. Suddenly (as in Poof!) all the flies were gone. I looked up and saw 60-70 medium-sized dragonflies flying around me. There hadn't been thousands of flies just then, merely a few hundred. But to have them completely gone, was an amazement.
They came back about 20 yards later as I moved away from the tamaraks. I continued on, hooked the chain on the boat to my cat and went back right by the tamaraks. Tah! Dah! My lovely, beloved, wonderful warrior-bug friends came back out and deleted more of the hated fly hoard. They stayed with me, all around me for a few moments, caught their fill and retreated back to whence they came.
I was joyous! I was ecstatic! Yippe Kye Yeah! Hell Yeah! I had support!
The rest of that what had been a horrible day was much the same. Every time I went near there, my buddies came out and ate some flies. I was a regular dragonfly deli. After that, I noticed them everywhere, going about their daily feast, but not in the same numbers as my special spot on the far side of the marsh. Yes, I still suffered. That day and for days yet to come. I still itched. I was still hot and covered in welts. But my attitude was much better. Just about the end of that hatch, we completed our harvest on that marsh and moved to another. Only to come there right at the beginning of the hatch there. But, all things being relative, it was NOTHING like what we had just been through. Totally tolerable.
We got a new guy after we moved there, and he was dumbfounded why we didn't think the flies were all that bad. We tried to tell him what we had endured previously. But he just didn't get it.
I still hate flies and their nation into perpetuity. And I still love dragonflies. Always will...

It ain't easy being green

I am so new to the internet, I have been really wondering what I got myself into with this blog. I was orginally trying to post a comment to a beloved friend whose blog I read regularly. But I had to sign in. The next thing I know, I had a blog of my own. Well, since I so thoroughly tricked myself in to starting one, I might as well use it, right?
I am so green!
I hit the wrong keys and do all kinds of weird stuff. I even posted a message to myself, but figured out how to delete it. I better see if there's a Blogging for Dummies available. I would like to thank Lori for her encouraging words.

Into the marsh

I spent four seasons harvesting sphagnum moss on various moss marshes in central Wisconsin. We used modified pitch forks called "pulling hooks," to gather the moss and pack it on large flat, wooden "boats" pulled behind 6,000lb "cleat-track" cats. The company that I worked for also had a harvest machine, and I became quite good at driving the cats within inches of the harvest machine, pulling a boat and two co-workers behind me. I loved that job. I had to leave it because it was at best a sixth-month season. And the last year I worked there, the company only harvested three months. I could not wait nine months to work again. I intended to come back, but I accidently found a full-time job that pays me well and that I like. But I miss the marsh. I miss being out there everyday and being totally immersed in nature. There were beautiful dragonflies and flowers. Eagles would soar overhead and often plop down on a branch and watch to see what we chased up once the moss was pulled away. The view was gorgeous. Working in a clearing with a ring of woods around us, the clouds were spectacular.
It wasn't all dragonflies and flowers. Some days were hard, hot, fly-infested and miserable.
The very first day I worked was a trial. It was mid-April. Rainy. The wind was cold. The foreman picked me up at the office. He took one look at his his new crew member and tried not to have a look like he was sure I wasn't going to work out. He optimistically told me on the drive up to the woods and down the marsh road what an adventurous job it was and what a great crew we had. We got there and the crew was sitting in a shed waiting for him. They had all been planning on going home for the day because of conditions, but I wasn't aware of that. We went down to the edge of the marsh and I realized that we had to stand on these boats and be pulled by a cat out to where we were harvesting. Someone handed me a huge, heavy pulling hook and they told me to use it to help me balance. I just about wiped right out when the cat jerked forward, but the foreman grabbed my arm to steady me. I was really wondering what I had gotten myself into. Some 15 minutes later, we stopped and I stepped off into the marsh. The water immediately went over my boots, filling them with water. There was plenty of room because they were borrowed knee boots and way too big for me. The water was cold. I was wearing an army poncho because it was still raining. The wind kept slapping the poncho into my face. My glasses kept steaming up and the cold water was wicking right up my pants leg from my wet boots.
A few minutes into all this, I mis-stepped in the squishy marsh and splat! I fell right down on my bottom. And had trouble standing back up. The foreman had to give me a hand. It was impossible not to notice the guys giving each other looks and trying really hard not to laugh. I was horrified. I had thought I could do the work but now that I was in the thick of it, I realized what a horrible mis-judgement I had made. I focused on and dedicated myself to just making it through the day. The wind increased in the afternoon. I worked harder to keep myself warm. The pulling hook was so heavy that my arms ached. I just kept pushing through. I fell down again. But that time I was able to pull myself up. I didn't care because I was already soaked.
After hours of this, the day was done and the foreman was so enthusiastic. I was a mosser now. I was doing great. I was getting the hang of it. I just knew that I had made it through the day. We had to ride the boat back in to shore. It was much easier because there was a huge pile of moss to hang on to. But as soon as the cat did the intial jerk, I was knocked off balance and plopped right down into the pile. I knew this wasn't the usual etiquette because two guys laughed. But I was soaked to the skin anyway and it was much more comfortable than standing, so I rode in that way.
We got back to the landing and I was so grateful I had survived my horrible, cold, wet, miserable day. The foreman went on and on about how I fit right in because I was such a hard worker and working out there in conditions like that and never complaining. Then he noticed for the first time what a heavy pulling hook I had been using and was more amazed. He handed me a smaller one and told me to use that one the next day. I was thinking, well, I'm not gonna be here, but I took it and put it aside anyway.
On the way back to the office, a 40-minute drive from the marsh, the foreman was going on about how it's not usually like this and everyday will be easier than this one because this was the worst conditions that he had ever worked in in 20-plus years of mossing. It's all a piece of cake from now on? What's he saying? I thought these guys were like the post office, through rain and sleet and all that. So I didn't tell him I wasn't coming the next day. I decided to wait and see how I felt about it the next morning. When we got back to the office, he fixed me up with a pair of proper fitting boots.
The next morning I woke up to a beautiful, warm, sun-shiny day. I knew I was going into the day differently, with proper boots and a smaller, lighter, shorter pulling hook. I couldn't wait to see how it went.

Moment one.

I wish I may,
I wish I might, think of something clever to write.
First moments blogging,
Thoughts a clogging,
Memory hazing,
Techno-phasing.
Dash and boulders, ship's a sinking,
Whatever, Whatever?
Was I thinking?