5 times going for a walk in the forest was a really bad idea and 0 times it wasn't

So occasionally when the weather was not rainy or super hot, Kaja and I decided to make our evening walk with Katja a bit longer.
The first time we did this I had pretty much just gotten here and didn't really know better, so when Kaja suggested we walk through the forest and do this small circle.
I happily agreed and it was pretty nice until we came out of the forest and all went to hell in a hand basket.
You may have noticed that there were quite a few bugs out this summer. Specially before and after the solstice.
So the bugs were gathering and we were swatting and picking up speed and then Katja wanted to drink some water. And we had to stop and the horde of mosquitoes that had been steadily following us suddenly reached their feast.
Dear lord I thought I was gonna die of bloodloss right then and there but somehow we did manage to hop our way out and back home to liberally lather ourselves in hydrokortison.
The second time Kaja thought that hey she knows this great trail and it's not all that hot and /surely/ the bugs have mostly dissappeared by now.
I think you see where I'm going with this.
But no, it was worse.
The bugs were eating us and the trail kept getting smaller and smaller until it pretty much dissappeared. So in the end we had to hike through about a kilometer of waist-high grass and thorny stuff and fields and hope to god Katja knew where she was going.
So I just hung on for dear life to her leash and tried not to break my feet. Because obviously the ground wasn't exactly what you'd call flat. It was more like really tiny mountain ranges all put together and then concealed under even more grass.
All the while being eaten alive.
The third time it was supposedly not Kajas idea but Ken's. I'll leave deciding weather or not to believe her up to you. Anyway it was about a bajillion degrees out and we walked
and walked
and walked
and walked
and the mosquitoes... Mother of god, it's like they had been starving for a decade and we were the only food they were ever gonna get.
The whole reason behind going for that walk was so that we could stea... borrow some peas from the giant peafields. Or whatever the fuck. Anyhow as it turned out, they were far from ready and we had to turn all the way back and just walk through the heat and the bugs and the horrible heat again. Did I mention the bugs?
The fourth time Kaida was visiting. And we decided to go for a walk. And then Kaja says that it would be a great idea to go along this trail that she knows. It'd be this awesome long walk.
I was understandably wary but she promised that the trail would not disappear into nothingness this time and the bugs and mostly gone already.
And I was outnumbered two to one so we went.
In retrospect I can't really decide if it was worth it or not.
Basically along the sides of the road (which did at one point fade to this clearly-once-a-path-but-noone's-been-here-in-ages stage with it's trademark waist-high grass but it wasn't that bad this time) were these giant blueberries that were big as apples. Well more or less. So Kaja, Kaida and I ate ourselves sick stopping every couple of meters because we saw another buch comepletely covered in the sweet treats, Katja learned to eat them right off the bush and that I was most likely to offer mines to her followed closely by Kaida and that Kaja just showed her to pick her own. Lucky was completely agitated because he likes to walk and those stupid humans kept not walking and instead stuffing their faces with some weird blue stuff.
And then we had ventured low enough that suddenly there were giant puddles blocking our way. We got past the first couple and then we came to a big one. Okay, so we'll go off the trail until it gets dry again. Katja went first, followed by Kaja, me and then Kaida. I should have known something was up when Kaja said that it's getting a bit damp.
Before we knew it we were both ankle-deep in water with every step we took. Kaida had managed to save herself, turn back and try the other side of the puddle which was higher than the road and therefore was saved from having the practically swim. Statistically speaking one of us should have realised what the puddles in the drought and the giant blueberries and the still-growing cranberries and other stuff meant. That we were somewhere low enough to be classified almost a swamp.
But they say hindsight is 20/20 and they are probably right. So we were all making obscene wet sounds with ever step, save for Kaida who was mostly dry. Her victory was however quite short lived as after getting home she realised that her shoes had coloured her white socks almost completely blue. My shoes have long since stopped being connected to the soles and therefore the air conditioning is great. After about 20 minutes of walking I had finally stopped leaving medium sized puddles in my wake.
Anyway other than that and Katja suddenly getting very scared of a mushroom the walk was great. And the blueberries delish.
So perhaps that time wasn't that much of a horror after all.
The fifth time we went for a ride on the bikes. It was pretty okay until I felt something sitting on my shoulder. I made the mistake of swatting at it and holy fuck.
It was like it had sunk its giant fangs into me and then pulled out half my shoulder. Which it, whatever it was, esentially did. So i jumped off the bike looked over my shoulder (screaming) and only saw this one long hairy leg sticking out from under the sleeve of my t-shirt. so I swatted some more (screaming) until I reached Kaja who at that point was all but dying of laughter, so she could tell me that the thing, hairy legs included, had flown off with it's dinner.
That was last weekend. The whole thing still hurts like a bitch.
So let this sit here and serve as a reminder that Even though Kaja thinks her ideas are great, they really aren't.



-Kelly