I wish I could be out at Roundrock every weekend, but, alas, life intrudes. I wonder how the lake is doing. I wonder if the stray cattle found their way home. I wonder if the game camera snapped a shot of a bobcat. Or if the crows found all of the peanuts I left for them. Or if the woodpeckers found the suet block. I have two game cameras. Libby got them as a package deal, and we often set up both of them in the woods, although we never get anything more than more deer (maybe the same ones moving from baited station to station) and invisible critters. I haven't set out the second camera for more than a month because of #2 Son Adam. On the night before he was to leave for Italy -- as prelude to his month in India -- he announced that he needed a larger memory card for his camera. He didn't know how much access he would have to the internet, so he wanted to have a large memory card in case he had to store all of his pix until his return. It turns out there were internet cafes all over the place in Italy (and France and Monaco), but he reports that the same is not the case in Mumbai, at least not the part of it he is working in. So I guess I can spare him the card. (If he comes back with a bunch of photos of deer though . . . ) He called me the other day just to check in and reported that he was on the train going to his apartment for the night. It turned out he got off work at the clinic about 9:00 p.m. local time. Apparently in true student doctor fashion, he is working long, exhausting hours. The deadline for submissions to the next Festival of the Trees is fast approaching. Tai Haku of Earth, Wind & Water would like your submissions by June 27 . That's this Friday! You can send them by email to p.taihaku [at] googlemail [dot] com or use the handy submission form . Don't be shy now. I'm intending to walk the fence line in my northeast corner to see if I can find the breach where the cattle got through. (I have a neighbor in that direction who does keep cattle.) The barbed wire is old and has snapped here and there, but usually there are three other strands left when one snaps. It may be, though, that the ground has grown soggy enuf for the cattle to push down the fence posts and saunter through. (I give credit to Dana at The Cabin Chronicles for this idea. I just hope she didn't give the idea to the cattle first.) If I find a breach I'm not sure what I'll do next. I can reset posts, but I've never strung barbed wire. I don't think survey tape will work as well. What's Pablo reading now? How does The Virgin of Small Plains sound to you? It is written by Kansas City writer Nancy Pickard, and it got great reviews as well as a number of awards. It's a sort of murder mystery. I've read some of her work before. Tomorrow night is the discussion of the three young adult novels I've been reading the last few weeks. Then I think I am free from book discussion groups until September, so I can read whatever I want! Missouri calendar:

• Prickly pear cactus blooms.
• Canado goose molt is at its peak.

Today in Missouri history:

• Pierre Antoine Tabeau made the first entry into his journal about life on the Missouri River on this date in 1804. His writings and his good offices with the Natives along the river helped ensure the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

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