Getting Intimate with the Marsh Mud

On Tuesday, I got stuck in the mud looking for Phragmites roots. I was up to my knees in the smelly marsh mud, and my boots were stuck. Luckily I was out at the GCrew site and Gary was close by to pull me out. But I had to leave my boots, at least for the moment. I returned to the field house to find some equipment to pull my boots out. I found a piece of fiber glass boardwalk, which would spread my weight out. It was low tide and the wooden boardwalk out where I got stuck was more than 4 feet above the soil level. So when I tried to hop onto the piece of fiber glass, I missed, slipping into the mud for the second time in less than half an hour. This time, I got even more muddy, past my hips, as seen in this picture to the right. My legs are muddy, my pants are muddy, my arms are muddy, parts of my shirt are muddy. I was a muddy mess! But as you can see I did not mind getting covered in mud, its part of the job description when working in the marsh. Even though I washed most of it off with water from the rainwater barrel, I still felt bad getting into my government truck after the incident because of the mess and the accompanying rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide.