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I mentioned in a recent post that I was heading off into the field, or in this case the woods, again. It's getting to be a habit with me that I don't think to take my camera until it's to late, so, true to form, I forgot it again. This is why I've titled this with "Crate", since that's all I have to show for the trip to begin with. My plan was to go to my favorite Callovian site in order to finally fulfill my recurring dream of a large, well-preserved Bullatimorphites and/or Cadoceras ammonite. I always drive down to the end of a forestry road and park the car under the trees before I mosey off to the site, but this time it didn't quite pan out. The farther on I drove into the woods, the more the snow and ice had accumulated, so when I turned around and reversed into my parking spot, I noticed for the first time that I had to drive slightly uphill in order to complete the maneuver. Problem was that I couldn't, since the wheels were running on the spot and digging deeper into the quagmire every second. My head became immediately filled with visions of walking the 5 kilometers back to the next village in search of a tow truck or a frendly farmer, but after I'd settled down a bit, I decided that the best thing would be to get out of the car and assess the situation first. Fortunately, being a serious fossil collector, I always have a plethora of tools of all sorts in the trunk, so I selected my trusty pickaxe and spent the next half hour shaving the 5-inch layer of ice, mud and decaying leaves down to the gravel roadbed. Then, easing off in second gear, I managed to get back to dry land, so to speak. Thank goodness! It was at this point that I also decided that since I hadn't brought along my downhill skis, I would forgo slipping and sliding to a site which is more than likely still buried under a foot of snow. Fortunately this area has a good number of sites to chose from, so after a bit of driving around, I managed to find one on the hills of the Scheffheu which is pretty well free of snow and spent the rest of the day exploring and chipping out the odd fossil. This time it's a selection from the Aalenian and Bajocian of ammos and bivaves along with one belemnite, all of which need a good bit of prep.