Folding a piece of Tyvek under the pad is a solid move, it takes a beating and barely adds weight. That acorn story hits close to home, I once set up on what looked like flat ground near a shelter in Georgia and woke up with a hole from a sharp rock that poked right through my pad and my cheap foam back up. Now I always sweep the spot with my boot first and carry Tenacious Tape in my pack, that stuff fixes almost anything quick. A friend of mine swears by cutting a section of an old foam sleeping pad to use as a sit pad and extra ground layer, and he's never had a leak since he started doing that. Have you tried using a piece of that blue closed cell foam under your pad at all?

Yeah that part about not skimping on the adhesive spread is what got me too... I always thought more glue meant more mess but turns out I was just being cheap with it. Switched to troweling it on thicker and my jobs have been way more solid since.

Cmon @hannah320 it was probably just some military flares drifting around, that stuff happens all the time.

Oh man that's frustrating! I bet the difference is about callusing time. Most people just pop the leaves in water right away but I've noticed if you let that cut end dry out for a solid 3-4 days first, the water roots do way better. I actually tried both methods side by side with some graptopetalum leaves last year and the water ones that had a good callus grew roots faster than the soil ones but the soil ones were more stable when I finally potted them up. Also your water might be too cold or too warm, I keep mine at room temp and change it every 4 days max. Water rooting is basically a race against rot and you gotta win by having the roots pop out before bacteria settles in.

Wait, you let mud dry on for days and then beat it off with a hammer? That sounds like a great way to crack the drum or mess up the paddles. I'd be scared to even try that, one good whack in the wrong spot and you're buying a new mixer.