Old Rocks

I’ve always liked this rock on the edge of my property. Underneath it is just enough room for small critters to hide or take shelter. Roundtop is a very rocky hill, with lots of medium and small boulders both above and under the ground. Someone told me once that the mountains in this area were essentially created by “volcano spit.” The volcanoes disappeared eons ago but the hard volcanic rocks spit out by that long gone volcano remain as small mountains.

I perhaps think I know where the volcano in this area might have been. Roundtop is one of several small mountains that are separated from the nearby uplifted Appalachian range by a valley of about 10 miles. If you look at the three or four mountains directly around Roundtop on a topographic map, they form a somewhat circular or elliptical shape. In between them all is a smaller valley with a stream through it. I think the volcano could have been down in that long-filled valley. At least that’s my theory until someone tells me differently.

The weather is cooler this morning, closer to more normal December temperatures, though still several degrees above that. At least now it feels like a normal warm December day instead of late September.