I still have some mushroom photos that I have’t posted on m blog. Many of the pictures of mushroom that I take are close-ups. Today I’m posting some that show the mushrooms in their environment.
I hope you enjoy them….
Growing from a tree trunk.
Defying leaves and sticks
Alone
In good company
between the leaves
Mushroom wonderland
Walking into the woods is like parting a curtain in my heart.
My breathing slows,
my step softens.
The sounds of the outside world are muffled and I see
not just with my eyes,
but with my whole being.
This morning it’s mushrooms and mosquitos, damp earth and deep green.
I’m careful where I place my feet,
along side the salamander and between the mushrooms.
I’m not sure what is happening with this mushroom. From what I’ve read mushroom don’t have seeds, then have tiny spores that geminate in the ground.
It looks like this mushroom sprouting milkweed seeds. Maybe it’s a fungus growing from the fungi?
I tried googling it, but I can’t find anything about it. But then I’m not really sure what to search for. So if anyone has any idea what is happening with this mushroom, I’d love to know.
Last week I put up a picture of this nest I saw while walking in the woods. I asked if anyone knew who it might belong too.
Josie suggested a Hermit Thrush and Marianna an Eastern Towhee.
So I read up on both birds and from the pictures I saw and reading what each bird makes their nest from, to my untrained eye, it could be either.
If I had seen the eggs, that would have helped. While the Eastern Towhee can have eggs in a variety of colors, the Hermit Thrush has a light blue eggs sometimes spotted.
I also listened to some of their calls on Cornells All About Birds. The Hermit Thrush has a haunting song, that sounds vaguely familiar to me, but I’ve never been good identifying bird calls.
But even narrowing it down to two birds is pretty good. I’ll keep an eye on the nest when I walk that trail. Maybe the bird with come back again next year.
I have a nice collection of mushroom photos so I decided to do a little exhibit on my blog of mushroom tops.
Some of the mushrooms are so bright they are easy to spot….
…others blend into their surroundings.
This mushroom had a little puddle of water in it from the morning rain.
There are so many colors…
…and textures.
This mushroom was shaped by the stick it grew into.
I don’t know the name of any of these mushrooms, it they are edible or poisonous or if they have any medicinal purposes.
But I feel like I’m getting to know them a bit by how they look and where they grow.
Similar to some of the trees that grow in the woods where I walk. I might be able to identify an oak tree without know exactly what kind of oak, or have no name to put to a tree at all, but recognize it’s bark or leaf because I’ve seen it before.
I’ve been taking pictures of mushrooms in the woods for three or four years, but it’s only this year that I realized how plentiful they are in the last summer, especially after a good rain.
I saw so many mushrooms when I took a walking meditation on Friday. Today I went back, with my camera, thought the woods behind the farm to the Old Ice Road to take their pictures.
Many of the mushrooms I saw two days ago had been eaten. ( I wonder what the mushroom above will look like after the slug has moved on.)
Others had been toppled, maybe by animals knocking them down as they walked by. (I’ve seen Zinnia do that more than once). I took a picture of the mushroom above on Friday….
…this is what it looked like today. Still beautiful with that lovely curl and feathery texture.
Maybe it was the bear who left this print in the mud (next to the tire marks of an ATV), who knocked over the mushroom. The bear print was as big as my hand.
There were many mushroom that looked as if they had popped up overnight, pushing the leaves and twigs above them out of the way as they grew.
I wasn’t surprised to see the mushrooms, but I could hardly believe seeing the nest in the ground right next to the deer tail off the Old Ice Road.
I must have passed it so many times this summer without seeing it. The nest looked as if it was growing right out of the ground. The sides built of chunks of rotting wood and leaves (that I could see) and the center, a swirl of pine needles about the size of a tennis ball.
I don’t know whose nest it is. I’ve never seen one like it.
If anyone reading this has any ideas, I’d love to know what you think.
It’s memories that plague me as I walk in the woods. My brain regurgitating past hurts and harms done to and by me.
I remind myself that reality is what is in front of me at the moment.
That I am as much a part of the earth as the trees, ferns and mushrooms surrounding me,
as much as the rotting leaves and soil under my feet.
The Wolfpine towers over me
I think…
“that’s me”
Split in half,
damaged yet thriving.
The dead side,
home to squirrels, owls and spiders
shelter and a place to roost for the passing bird
food for the ants and beetles.
The living side,
tumbling upwards,
toward the possibility of open sky
and the nourishing sun.
Last night after I wrote Breathing With The Spiders Web on my blog, I read it out loud to Jon.
He enjoyed hearing me read it and suggested I make a video of it.
I wanted to read the piece at the pond but there was too much background noise, so I took a video of the pond then did a voice over.
It was a little tricky trying to get the video to be the right length. It goes on a bit after I finish reading, but I think it’s a good first try.
Jon was encouraging about doing this more often with some of my pieces, reading them as well as writing them. And I like that idea too. So I’m looking into Sound Cloud which is just an audio link (no visual)that I could post with some of my writing.
I’ve always loved being read to and I like to read out loud, and Jon’s been very encouraging saying I do it well.
I think it sounds pretty good too, so it could be a nice new addition to my blog.
Already the logged woods are beginning to heal.
Brambles and ferns,
the place where the bear runs,
felled trees and branches left behind
becoming earth.
Zinnia does that Lab dance through the muddy pond, kicking up her heels and tossing her head.
She comes out a black and white cookie,
rolling in last years leaves,
groaning in pure pleasure.
Mosquitos sing and sometimes sting,
gathering blood for their babies.
I only have eyes for mushrooms, which blinds me to all the other wonders of the woods.
But it is their season.
I seek mushrooms, as mosquitos gather blood and Zinnia rolls in mud.
Thanks to Lois, I knew when to go back to the place in the woods where the Rattlesnake Plantain grows to see it bloom.
Later in July or early August, Lois wrote. “It sends up a single spike of small white flowers. An unobtrusive native orchid easily overlooked.”
So I went to the woods to find the unobtrusive orchid. I know where the Rattlesnake Plantain grow now. Just off the path, before the swamp where the skunk cabbage grows. South of the tree with the thick black mushrooms low on its trunk. The tree that often has a dinner plate sized mushroom growing at its roots.
A fertile place.
The Rattlesnake Plantain leaves, though only an inch or so long, are easy to find in the brownish-gray leaf litter. They stand out with their rich green leaves veined in white.
One of the flowers had already bloomed, the long stem brown and shriveling. But another was in full bloom, flowers so tiny, I had a hard time taking their picture.
I was thrilled to see those little white orchids, the ones that Lois described so well.
I might never have seen them or been able to share them, if she didn’t let me know when the orchids bloom in a comment on my blog back in April when I posted a picture of the leaves.
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