<p>I returned to the Day Road farms last Sunday for my first Farm Walk.</p>

<p>We finally received our <a href="/2008/12/12/moon-weather-winter/">promised</a> snow.</p>

<p>With Thanksgiving over we’re on to the next adventure in the holiday calendar – the Christmas tree. We cut down a tree from Bainbridge Island Farms last year and it survived until May as green as the day we brought it home! So, under heavy fog, we once again made a trip to the farm to find the perfect tree.</p>

<p>A peaceful lazy day with no agenda and, amazingly, some free-time allowed one of my favorite photographic indulgences: walking my yard hunting for mushrooms. I find the varieties of mushrooms simply amazing and love to lay stomach-to-the-ground taking their photo.</p>

<p>I’ve been wondering if the actual ferry path resembled that on Google Maps so I tracked it today.</p>

<p>We had some fantastic weather today and I had a couple hours in the afternoon with nothing to do so I strolled around the yard making photos.</p>

<p>“Gus wants to go on the ‘big boat’. He hasn’t been in a long time.” And so Gus spent a slow, rainy, start-of-winter day with me. I like Gus and I wanted him to have a good time but nothing much exciting happened. Sorry buddy.</p>

<p>My addition to fall color photography.</p>

<p>The amount of time spent volunteering has been one of the great changes in our lives since moving. For me, it’s usually either maintaining the forest trails or helping with farm work on behalf of the <a href="https://www.friendsofthefarms.org/">Trust for Working Landscapes</a>.</p>

<p>My silence of late is attributable to having spent the better part of last week at <a href="http://www.ebay.com/">eBay</a> attending the <strong>Next-Generation Distributed Systems Summit</strong>. I was fortunate, in time and invitation, to attend, meet some really amazing technologists and learn a Tremendous amount (thanks <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blueberries-Picture-Puffins-Robert-McCloskey/dp/014050169X">Little Bear</a>). I’m still consolidating my final notes and thoughts on…