Fungis Aren’t Fun, Guys!

Naturally weird “In Five Words”

Mushroom from our yard. Looks just a TAD creepy, yes? (all photos by author)

funky fungi
frequently flourish
festively

The ones on the left are pretty tiny, I’m kinda proud that they came out well with my phone camera. Okay, I’m no threat to Erika Burkhalter, but still, not awful.

We just got through tropical depression Ida, with 6.34" of rainfall in our backyard. (Or, as my ex-wife puts it, an average rainfall in Florida. She’s a little biased toward Florida. You’d like her, Dennett.) And now we’re finding an extra-large crop of ‘shrooms in the backyard, side yard, and front yard.

These seem the most prolific type. They’re all growing right next to the electric power meter. Probably a coincidence.

Other than a new crop of fungi (most of which are kinda cute, mostly) we got through Ida just fine. Some folks in our area lost power, had sump pumps that couldn’t keep up, had basement window wells that filled and leaked, or had cute little creeks in their backyards turn into something they usually only see on CNN. Not to mention wash-out secondary roads and debris on creek-crossing bridges.

This is a… um, dunno, but it wasn’t here yesterday and it’s here now. Is it one of those exploding puffballs or something? Tell you what, we’ll just let it sit there and do its own thing, okay?

On the plus side, temperatures are MUCH cooler (51° this morning! on Labor Day weekend!) and the air is dryer. We opened up the house for the first time since early July. It’s like a preview of fall.

“Naked Ladies,” aka fall crocus. Pretty little guys, but a tad early.

So we’re enjoying our backyard, and the only sound of water today is from our artificial stream gurgling.

A late response to Tre’s five-word challenge, after Deb looked at me this morning and said, “You know what’s really weird? MUSHROOMS!” (without knowing that Tre had already been weirded-out by mushroom invaders). The first four words are hers, Tre!

Writers: A Challenge