Here’s our weekly digest of fun stuff we found online, now with more robots. Have a great weekend.

• Small, once-a-day marketing can be more powerful than a big, one-time only blow-out.
• 4 alternatives to leaving your business to your kids.
• We’ve got some whitepapers on engines, water management and holiday lighting. Check them out.
• The Case-Shiller Home Price Index by metro area.
• Above: With apologies to Lee Majors, the WSJ brings you the peak time for everything.

Tom Fochtman’s been keeping busy since retiring from CoCal Landscapes. He sends this report from an expedition out west:

This was a really nice fish and way bigger than the pic depicts. Hit like a freight train and headed upstream, then downstream and we had to chase him in the raft.  About 22 inches and 4 pounds. We floated 10 miles of the Colorado River, from Glenwood Springs to New Castle.

But we’re keeping him busy, too. He’s writing a quarterly column on mergers and acquisitions, and the business of selling your business for us. You can read his first installment here, and look for his next piece in our November issue.

A year after DuPont’s Imprelis herbicide was linked to widespread damage of non-target plants, the company’s professional products business will be sold to Syngenta for $125 million.

You can find the story and follow developments on our main news site.

Here’s our Friday digest of fun and interesting stuff from the web. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

• Small business M&A activity is at its highest point in three years.
• Phoenix housing is back on track. (via @martygrunder)
• How we pay taxes.
• Joe Calloway offers some great advice.
• We should all aspire to this level of brand loyalty.
• Modern (business) etiquette.
• Above: Mike Schwarze of Mike’s Tree Care saves a baby owl, remains awesome while doing so. (via @voiceoftreecare)

Here’s a collection of some of the best stuff we found this week. Enjoy!

• Ron Edmonds at the Principium Group has a good collection of major acquisitions from 2011.
• Cynthia Barnett has a new book on how we can fix America’s water crisis. (Via UTNE)
• Today is Epiphany, so you’re allowed to take down your Christmas tree. Here are a few ideas on what to do with it.
• 2012 looks bleak for consumer spending.
• ArtisTree supervisor exceeds customer expectations, refuses customer kisses.
• Jeff Korhan’s predictions for business and social media in 2012. (Better content, more videos.)
• Why marketing for small companies follows the “fake-it-til-you-make-it” model.
• Above: A good illustration of turf’s benefits from BASF TurfTalk.