Mushrooms 2017

As I've mentioned, I do enjoy walking about taking photos.  It's a kind of meditation and mindfulness for me.

We let our yard grow fairly wild, very wild in places.  The lawn area has so much "other" besides grass that we've taken to calling it a meadow.  There is lots of clover.  Lots of violets.  There is Queen Anne's Lace, which we let grow up tall in some places and mow in others.  There is oxalis.  There is usually plantain, though as I write this, I'm thinking that I haven't seen much this year.  This time of the year, there are little Black Eyed Susans in amongst the Queen Anne's.  For several years we had an expanding fairy ring of mushrooms.  I planted wild geranium and ferns when we moved in, and those have expanded.  There are many other things that I can't name.

This summer, being relatively wet, we had some really interesting mushrooms.  I suppose if I were to name this summer, it would be Year of the Mushroom.  I've felt rather mushroom-y myself - not very vibrant or energetic, working with decay and compost in the form of learning about / coping with old family emotional patterns that need to be composted and turned into something more positive and fertilizing.

So here are my mushroom friends of 2017:

Early summer

 Such an interesting texture on the cap.  And looking at it now, I see little total eclipses all over!  

A precursor of the late summer amazement to come!

Midsummer

 Such teensy little ones, in a huge colony.  Ringing an old stump.

Late summer.

The same stump then produced just this, at the other end of the size and quantity spectrum.   

With a dime for scale.

And then there's me.  This week, I realize now, I even dressed as a mushroom.  Even my once chocolate brown hair has gotten into mushroom mode.  

Happy composting, y'all!