Grok, eh? I presume you mean the word in the Martian sense, not however our trail-guide Poncho (as Tirius is known in this, his native land) took it as he went to work licking rocks. Being the solid gentleman of science I am, this task seemed all but ready to be done - but impatience won the day and readiness was discarded while all served to substitute.

As we sat in the Adherents' tasking war-room, better known as my parlor, pondering how we would attack this oddly green task, a number of things came to mind, amongst them living in trees or dressing up as bushes to terrorize passersby in what we could only imagine was the tree equivalent of a coworker-killing-spree fantasy. But alas, These ideas were saved for other tasks better suited, and we decided to go on a jaunt trough our sadly under-explored backwoods and see what we could find and seek to understand.

Having suited up in appropriate tasking attire, we ranged off to the edge of the micro-forest and allowed Poncho to get his bearings with a good solid rock-makeout.





In our hikings we came across a large pond, filled to the brim with cat-tails and speckled with laughing ducks. We each put a hand in to begin properly grokking nature, and only grokked that ducks are in fact either masochists or from Oregon, because that water was cold enough to sustain an overheating polar bear. Rounding the rim, trying to get a picture of whatever craven mutant-ducks would live in that cold, we found a pool of blood, presumably from whomever had last publicly called the ducks craven mutants. We grokked that our lives were at risk, or that they would at least continue mocking us, so we moved on.







We continued ranging about crossing streamlets, investigating trees, until stopping at one point under a rather large foot-bridge to get our bearings, where we found some interesting artificial natural rock formations.





Our stroll brought us past another pond, this one inhabited by some aqueous species of tree, which we attempted to establish diplomatic relations with - in need of a local ally against the ducks - but we were promptly ignored. Instead we stared into the water and grokked the wisdom of water-dwelling trees, living so ascetically without any warmth or words. How amazing.



Trundling onward, we passed a quorum of cat-tails, apparently home to the local population of starlings. The locals tell a tale of thousands of small black birds that hold community within the reeds, remaining out of sight, save to hunt and fly about when large rocks are chucked into their midst. As we came upon them, though, he neither heard nor saw them, instead grokking their sleepiness and making it our own.



CONTINUING THOUGH! Like good explorers! We pushed forth taking in the feelings of, and becoming one with the trail upon which we walked, observing reverently the trees we passed until we came upon an odd device.









It appeared somehow, whether a local had done it, or it had come about as a natural formation, that a bit of metal cable, braided intricately, had been hung from a tree, a loop at roughly head level. While Poncho and I sat to grok it, Fettucini, in a fit of mad irishtalianism, grabbed it, took a running leap and swung back and forth across the pit in front of us.





A shovel was also found in the vicinity, we can only presume that the regular users of this contraption keep it handy to bury their dead who were too weak to hold on tightly. To prevent this local custom from continuing, we removed the shovel, hopefully saving dozens of lives.

Taking a few more winds through the woods, over a stream and into the heart of the forstlet, my trusty multi-tool (usually documenting my tasks, but recently freed from that duty by Fettucini and his documentation equipment) suddenly went off that we were atop a significant magnetic disturbance. The area around us was filled with oddly-leaning trees and orange-ish soil.





A handful of solid readings were taken, and we continued past with all due haste. We forded another creek, Fettucini's madness becoming more apparent by the moment we remained, as he chose to run across a fallen tree.



Our rangings took us momentarily back into civilization as we passed a playground, a number of bunnies and another field of cat-tails. One can only conclude that the cat-tails are some sort of freelance habitat mercenaries, giving the starlings, ducks and rabbits bases to work from in what one hopes is a war of mutual annihilation. Evil ducks.





We came across a spillway water-gate, which Poncho informed us was once inhabited by a toad-eating spider, but was sadly killed by fearful humans. Again, I presume that he valiantly killed many people as they tried to pry him from his home. Damn them.



Also, we encountered something resembling a trough, or a large stone coffin filled with water. Upon inserting a light into the murk, there were indistinct skeletal shapes. Poncho said nothing, Fettucini swore they were bones, I told myself it was branches.



Finally we encountered a post, with barbed wire wrapped about it. At first we thought it was once standing as a boundary-marker between the three dominant tribes, but it was quickly concluded that at one point in their misty past, they must have banded together to fence in the moles, using barbed wire and horizontally laid posts.



In our time in that forest, we grokked war, strife, tree-faces, and the wisdom of aquatic arborals. But now it was time to return home forthwith and enjoy hot tea and whiskey.