The "Lichen Hike"

  Son often says that I am easily amused.  I admit to the fact that I can be intrigued by the most ordinary things on earth.  What others find mundane, I find interesting...so interesting, in fact, that I become completely engrossed.  Lately (with my hikes being shortened due to care for the old dog), my in depth investigations are limited to mosses, lichens and fungi.  These are easily obtainable due to our heavy fogs and copious amounts of rain.  (The Deep South is quickly becoming akin to a rain forest! Well, at least in the imagination.) 

  On a short hike to take the old dog out, I came across yet another beautiful lichen that had been knocked from the old oak tree.  It seems that the squirrels delight in pulling the fluffs from the limbs as they are used to line the squirrels' nests.  It is an interesting thing, when you think about it.  Squirrels are smart.  Lichens are on the squirrels' diet list.  When times get lean, they can eat their houses!  Not many critters can say that!  Anyway, back to that lichen, finding it sent me into another tizzy!  I need to be collecting these things as specimens for my greenhouse transformation come October!  I have already decided that for the clue hunt this year, the greenhouse needs to be covered in mosses but....what respectable swamp witch hut would be without lichens?  

  My interest in this particular lichen was how adorable each frond was.  When getting up close and personal with the lichen through the camera lens, I was duly impressed by the shapes and colors.  I found them pretty while one friend said they looked a lot like  "man-eating plants from a horror movie".  Well, maybe.  But, then again, I never found horror movies terribly horrifying so maybe I am mistaken.  Still, gathering the downed lichens has become a priority on my short hikes.  It gives me something to look forward to as the old dog does his business and then heads back to the house.  He waddles along the path while I juggle handfuls of wet lichens.  We understand each others idiosyncrasies so all is good.