How fashionable, I thought. I will look good in the field, like Tom Cruise. I asked Vinny if he had brought a camera. I first realized that fashion and ecology do not necessarily go hand in hand as we made our way from the truck to a pond. We walked through an enormous patch of blackberry bushes about the size of Vermont.
Blackberries are the silver lining of a very black cloud known as blackberry briars.
By the time I reached the water, my right knee looked like an angry bobcat had used it as a scratching post. Well, I thought, once I start wading around, my knee won't feel so bad. This was momentarily true when we reached an area of knee-deep water. Backswimmers defend themselves by jabbing their mouthparts into the body of anything they consider a threat. They are not poisonous and won't hurt you at all unless you provoke them.