Football’s a long way off, opening day still feels like it won’t ever get here and this hockey season is just weird.

So how to get a sports fix in the depth of winter?

Two words: Fantasy timbersports.

You get all the fun of following a team and watching them compete without being hampered by any knowledge about the sport. It’s a win-win!

Here’s our weekly round-up of cool stories from the web. Enjoy!

• Bottle gardens.
• Preserving landscaping’s past.
• Flower-powered clock.
• When trees die, people die.
• ValleyCrest replants all the trees it cut down to make way for the shuttle.
• Above: A robot uses a Stihl chainsaw to carve nesting stools out of a log.

The team at Swingle Lawn, Tree & Landscape pulls back the curtain on their long-running video series to show that they are, in fact, real people who can laugh at themselves.

Well played, folks.

Because it’s Halloween, and lots of folks are busy digging out from Super-mega-frankentstorm Sandy, here are the top 10 ways to smash a pumpkin in slow motion.

But, if you ask me, the best way to smash a pumpkin is to use a high-power hydraulic cannon.

Happy Halloween!

Our resident sales expert and unfortunate Bengals fan Marty Grunder has some great deals for fall training and development.

In this series of webinars, you’ll learn how to improve your sales process, plan for 2013 and develop yourself as a leader.

If you want to have a good year, now’s the time to start working on it. Sign up today.

Here’s our weekly digest of interesting stuff from the web. Have a great weekend!

• Google offers great benefits, including paying your family after you die.
• Weekend read: “The Art of the Sale.”
• Hipsters continue summer tradition of renting lawns.
• Landscape lighting as high art.
• How not to ask for customer feedback. (via @Bader_Rutter)
• Now this is a fifth room.
• Above: 5 ways to save fuel. (via Wright Mowers)

America in Bloom has produced a series of videos to promote the value of plants as more than just pretty extras. They’re low-budget, and a little low-brow, but they do a great job of getting the point across.

Here’s your weekend reading list. Enjoy!

• Olympic landscaping.
• Job openings are at their highest levels in four years.
• A dealer on what Tier 4 means to you. (via @johndeere)
• Broadleaf weed primer. (via @fmcturf)
• How to get the most from your home and garden show exhibitions.
• Related: How to work a trade show.
• Above: D&K outlines its quarterly gardning srevices for the southwest.

Special in from Richard Restuccia today is his review of “Watershed,” the latest documentary of water in the American west. Narrated by Robert Redford, the film tells the story of the Colorado River and what the future holds for the most important water resource west of the Mississippi.

Saturday was the film’s Southwest U.S Premier; the sold out event packed The Water Conservation Garden amphitheater at Cuyamaca College. Watershed is one of the best films I have seen about water and definitely hits its goal of making water interesting to consumers. …

This is not only a must-see water management winner, but a great human interest story, too. So if you get a chance to see the movie, I wouldn’t miss it. You don’t have to be a water conservationist to enjoy it.

You can read the full review at ValleyCrest Takes On.