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Should I go ask Alice?
Does anybody out there know what kind of mushrooms these are? I found them in my backyard the other day when I was on a tennis-ball-rescue mission. Their coloring is beautiful, though their asymmetrical shape is a little off-putting. Their aroma (odor?) is very strong. I know that dogs and mushrooms don't usually mix well, and my online efforts to identify them were unsuccessful, so there was nothing left to do but get them out of the yard before Levi discovered them. Any ideas?
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A music fan
On Sunday evening my air conditioner stopped cooling. It broke late enough in the day that ceiling fans kept me from being miserable, but I couldn't sleep a wink that night. The fan in my bedroom has become a little bit wobbly, so that it makes a rhythmic clacking sound: CLACK-clack-CLACK-clack-CLACK-clack-CLACK-clack-CLACK-clack. That rhythm was enough to set off the music in my head. Apparently, there are many, many songs that can be sung to that beat, so all night long my inner jukebox was playing songs like these:
The good news is that the sky was overcast on Monday morning, keeping the day relatively cool until the A/C repairman arrived about ten a.m. The problem turned out to be a bad starter on the compressor, which took him only about 15 minutes to replace, after which -- for the sum of $286 -- we were cool again.
Monday night I slept like a baby, but with no lullabies whatsoever.
The weather and other outdoor stuff
Speaking of overcast skies, high temperatures followed by heavy afternoon rains have been the norm around here lately, making everything a little steamy. Here you can see that the rising sun shining through the condensation on this empty bird feeder lighted it up like a lantern:
Continuing to mosey down that trail, the reason the bird feeders were empty, having been filled only a day before, was that this fat mama and her feathered friends had knocked all the seeds to the ground:
One of those seeds surprised me by making its way to the other side of my patio fence, where it made me smile by growing into this:
Also making me smile was this playful little lizard, found frolicking on the doggy fence:
Leapin' lizards. Gotta love 'em.
"YANK-ee-DOO-dle WENT to TOWN a-RID-ing ON a PO-oh-NY..."and
"ALL a-ROUND the MUL-berry BUSH the MON-key CHASED the WEA-sel."Toward dawn it switched to poetry:
"BY the SHORES of GIT-che GU-mee,I thought it would drive me insane!
BY the SHIN-ing BIG-sea-WA-ter,
STOOD the WIG-wam OF No-KO-mis,
DAUGH-ter OF the MOON, No-KO-mis."
The good news is that the sky was overcast on Monday morning, keeping the day relatively cool until the A/C repairman arrived about ten a.m. The problem turned out to be a bad starter on the compressor, which took him only about 15 minutes to replace, after which -- for the sum of $286 -- we were cool again.
Monday night I slept like a baby, but with no lullabies whatsoever.
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The weather and other outdoor stuff
Speaking of overcast skies, high temperatures followed by heavy afternoon rains have been the norm around here lately, making everything a little steamy. Here you can see that the rising sun shining through the condensation on this empty bird feeder lighted it up like a lantern:
Continuing to mosey down that trail, the reason the bird feeders were empty, having been filled only a day before, was that this fat mama and her feathered friends had knocked all the seeds to the ground:
One of those seeds surprised me by making its way to the other side of my patio fence, where it made me smile by growing into this:
Also making me smile was this playful little lizard, found frolicking on the doggy fence:
Leapin' lizards. Gotta love 'em.
Life is interesting if you just LOOK!
ReplyDeleteNo idea about the mushrooms, they look nasty though. Good thing you found 'em before Levi did.
ReplyDeleteI bet a/c repairmen are cleaning up this month! Glad you didn't have to suffer long.
I like what Holly said!
Holly, you are absolutely right.
ReplyDeleteJanet, they did look nasty. The colors were pretty, but then so was Snow White's poison apple. Pretty can't always be trusted.
I'm not sure about those mushrooms, but I think they may be poisonous. Do you know if they were a rather bright orange before? We have mushrooms growing here (I can't believe it, so much rain, and mushrooms growing in our semi-arid area in July!!)right now, and I was able to identify one close to the same as yours as being poisonous. Lucky is now too old to bother with them...but I'll bet Levi would be interested!
ReplyDeleteGlad you have air conditioning back! So far, we haven't seen any sign of Summer...
Amanita muscaria mushroom
ReplyDeletedeadly in fact if you touch them you should wash your hands.
I have a rule never harvest a red mushroom alth some are said to be ok but if its red I leave it alone.
Marion, they were a bright coral color when I first noticed them, though that color had faded appreciably by the time I cut them down. And, yes, Levi would have been interested.
ReplyDeletePatsy, thanks for the info. Fortunately, I was cautious and touched them only with a plastic bag wrapped around my hand.