I made my order of trees from the Missouri Department of Conservation nursery. I didn’t go too ambitious this year. I ordered twenty-five more shortleaf pines. I’ll replace the ones that have been destroyed in my plantation, and the remainder I’ll plant here and there in the forest just to see what comes up.

I’ve also ordered twenty-five buttonbush plants. They need moist soil, so I will probably try to establish a grove of them in the wet area below the dam. There is also a muddy area below the pond dam, so I could stick a few there. They have adorable flower clusters, the flowers are noted for attracting honey-making insects, and their seeds persist into winter, giving foraging birds a meal. I’m almost certain I’ve seen buttonbush flowers at Roundrock, but in recent years when I’ve looked, I’ve not spotted them.

M and C have figured out exactly the right thing to complete their baby’s new nursery. Go have a look!

Shortly after our daughter, Rachel, returned to Oregon last week, a package from there came in the mail. It contained several grocery bags from a certain health food store up thataway. These bags are supposed to degrade within a couple of weeks in the outdoors. So I will add one to my experiment at Roundrock and let you know how it all progresses (if I can use that word for a sort of process of decay).

There are still a few days to contribute to the next Festival of the Trees, hosted by Hannibal’s own Larry Ayers over at Riverside Rambles. His deadline for emailed submissions is November 29 — that’s this coming Thursday! If you have a post or have seen one in your web surfing that you think would be good, just send the link to larry (dot) ayers (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the handy submission form.

(I won’t even chide you about becoming a host yourself.)

What is Pablo reading now? I finished Mr. Dixon Disappears, and while it was equal parts hilarity and exasperation, I didn’t think it was much of a mystery. Still, I’ll likely read other books by Ian Sansom in the future.

Now I’m in a race. I’ve picked up To Kill a Mockingbird again. I’ve read it at least twice, and it’s more likely that I’ve read it thrice. Certainly it’s a novel that merits many readings. The race is because one of the reading groups I’m in (the social justice group) will be discussing Black Robe by Brian Moore on December 14. I’ll have to dash through Mockingbird so I have enuf time to complete Black Robe in time for the discussion. Will I make it?

Read any good books lately?

Missouri calendar:

• The Missouri Natural Events Calendar is blank for today.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 1:01 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.