It’s been unusually wet here in recent weeks, so for International Rock-Flipping Day this year I thought I’d try my luck up on the ridgetop. In the past, my style has been to flip lots of rocks and hope that I’d find something interesting sooner or later, but this year I decided instead just to find one or two especially charismatic or well-situated rocks and be content with whatever I found underneath.
After 45 minutes or so I found a rock that really appealed to me. It was up off the ground by about six inches, capping a skirt of moss-clad soil on the side of a venerable old rock oak (Quercus prinus). Continue reading “In the hall of the mountain cricket”