Now is not the best time to look for round rocks (and not merely because the hunters are in the forest). Many leaves now cover the ground, hiding the crowns of the round rocks emerging from the soil. Even so, on some of the steeper hillsides, especially close to the ravines, the leaves tend to slide on by, and since the soil erodes here more, the emerging round rocks are more exposed. I found a very nice one last time I was out there, but I was too far from the truck to want to carry it back. And besides, my house and yard are full of round rocks.

I chatted with Good Neighbor Brian the other day, and I remembered to ask him how he managed to get his big tractor and brush hog all the way across the dam and then turned around to make the return pass. (See the photo above.) He told me he didn't. For the couple of seconds it took before he continued, I wondered if I had a new, mystery benefactor who was mowing my grass. No, it turns out. Good Neighbor Brian did mow the top of the dam, he simply hadn't used his big tractor and brush hog. Instead he used his smaller garden tractor. I think I've said before that he has all the toys!

You still have two weeks to make your submissions to the next Festival of the Trees. Host Dave, one of the originators of the Festival, has set a submission deadline of November 29. You can send your links (posts of your own or those you've found here and there) to Dave at bontasaurus (at) yahoo (dot) com. Be sure to put "Festival of the Trees" in the subject line. Or you can use the handy Contact Form. The Festival team is delighted to announce that we've been joined by another. A girl, even! Jade Blackwater has come aboard to add her own zest to the wacky goings on. You're probably familiar with Jade through her blog Arboreality, which has hosted the Festival four times already.

I've made more than 1,600 posts to this humble blog. That's a lot of tedium for the medium. I remember how proud I was when I hit the Century Mark. (Photo of Pablo at that link.) I hope there's been more signal than noise since.

Missouri calendar:

• Most leaves have fallen; forest floor blanketed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 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.