Round Rock Collection

Round Rock Collection AG WORLD 32-3-22 Bud Williams has a sharp eye, and the size of his round rock collection is a testament to that fact. The Bowie, Texas man has collected an impressive variety of smooth, round rocks, ranging from pea size to softball size. He accumulated them over 11 years while living near Lloydminster, Alberta, where he was employed at a large feedlot. "Most of the smaller rocks came into the feedlot on gravel trucks when they were graveling the alleys," explains his wife, Eunice. "The bigger ones, we found naturally out in the fields. Someone once told me that these smooth, round rocks were created by moving glaciers and that they kind of became ball bearings formed by the mass of ice moving and rolling them along, but I don't know if that's true." Round rocks aren't "all that uncommon" if you're in the right area, she claims, but everyone who sees Bud's collection gets quite a charge out of them. There are 89 in his display. "The rocks in the collection were chosen because they were all a little different in size and Bud can line them up in graduated order. I brought another 50 (or so) golf ball sized ones with us when we moved from Canada, which I have in flower pots. I'm not sure how many we left behind at our place in Alberta - probably another 100 or so. I don't remember seeing any larger than a softball." Eunice says some people think they're geodes and if you break them open there'll be crystals, but they're not û they're just plain old rocks, through and through. Bud, who is a world-famous teacher of livestock handling methods, likes to joke about how valuable his collection is and says he will probably donate them to some big museum someday. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Bud and Eunice Williams, P.O. Box 1497, Bowie, Texas 76230 (ph 940 872-4800; Eunice@ stockmanship.com; www.stockmanship. com).

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