When we were last at Roundrock and took our obligatory hike around the almost full lake, we saw several spheres like the one you see above. I'm sure it's obvious to you what the sphere is, but at the time I didn't realize it. I recalled spherical algae colonies I'd seen in the salty water of the Caribbean, and I understand there is a freshwater version of them that is common in Missouri waters. Still, it seemed too brisk for such an ambitious building project, but I'm willing to believe anything positive about my lake. What you see is a cleaned up version of what I showed in this earlier post. The farther we walked around the lake, the more of these we saw. I soon understood what I was looking at, and I'm glad I did all of my initial speculation inside my head. Missouri calendar:

• Serviceberry begins to bloom in woods.
• Badgers bear young through early April.
• Ohio buckeyes begin leafing.

Today in Missouri history:

• Waltus Watkins buys the first 80 acres of his eventual 4600 acre plantation on which he would establish the largest woolen mill west of St. Louis. The land and structures are now a park northeast of Kansas City.
• In 1896 a tornado strikes St. Louis.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 1:01 am and is filed under Green Things, Lake & Pond. 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.