The Avant Garden

are greatly exaggerated. I've just been busy with things we just don't talk about in the Avant Garden. But I did find this leftover cellphone pic from Maine:

 Maine has so many rocks that they just sit around doing nothing. Big, beautiful rocks, little stackables ... just sitting around calling out to me.

 Then the AvåntSwede came to visit and I sewed three snugglesacks:

That's friend Åsa, who flew all the way from Sweden to hang out in the Avant Garden. She was so cool that I no longer say, "That's really awesome." I say, "That's really åsome." Anyway, the snuggly on the left is for her 5-year-old son (Ture), the Swede is in the snuggly that will go to her husband (Hugo) and the animal design on the right is for her 8-year-old daughter (Sandra).

I rec'd an e from her today that said, "Good things from Asheville ... Sandra and Ture are watching telly in their snugglesacks right now."

Yesterday I went hiking on the Mountains-to-the-Sea Trail and saw this creature:

It looked so plump and yummy I almost ate it, or at least brought it home to sauté in butter and garlic. 

Most of the rest of my time has been taken up by the rockstack mailbox projick I mentioned about a month ago. Here's how it looks without the threaded rod running through it:

I hope it looks just like that with the threaded rod running through it.

As I mentioned last time, it had to be a stack first and actually balance, with the threaded rod only for permanence, not balance. Does that make sense?

The Swede and I drove out to the bascom.

Trailer Hitch Arch on Pedestal is still doing well:

and look at these cool signs they put to go with it so that folks could call it something:

Once again, as all rockstackers know, that is just a little something to make you feel like someone instead of a guy so lonely he has to make rockstacks to have someone to talk to. All those Stones come home on Hallowe'en Day. It will be a joyous reunion around the rockpile that night.