Questions All Answered

  With the hikes being cut short for a while, I have to find points of interest in a small area of the yard.  While the old dog rests, I can get up close and personal with whatever is in the nearby (approximately ten ft in diameter) circle of "wilderness".  If I get further away, Mr. PJ panics so I tend to talk to him while exploring the mini world around me.  This morning, that world was drippy as a heavy fog had settled in from the Bay.

  Just as I was about to think there was nothing to pique the interest, a lovely, white mushroom was spied.  Ok!  Now there is a thing of beauty and right beneath my feet!  Not fretting over wet knees, I knelt to get a good look at the mushroom.  Hmmm, I am definitely not a mycologist so I had no idea if this was one of those "bad" mushrooms or not.  Better be on the safe side and not fiddle with it too much.  So, I photographed it and pondered a few questions.  One....is there a difference between a toadstool and a mushroom?  Seriously now.  A toadstool has a much more imaginative name.  Think about it...toadstool...toad (as in frog) and stool (as in bench).  Cute name but, to be honest, I have never seen a toad (nor a frog) sitting atop a mushroom.  I saw a grasshopper sitting on one once but never a toad.  Perhaps the name is a lot like that of frogs and toads whereas all toads are frogs but all frogs are not toads.  Make sense?  Nah.  Are all toadstools mushrooms?  Actually, the names are interchangeable scientifically but not commonly. It is the common idea that poisonous mushrooms are toadstools...except locally...then stinky mushrooms are toadstools.  Which opens another whole can of worms (if worms came in cans).  Perhaps the idea of a toadstool being a frog bench is going the wrong way.  If you use the lesser used definition of each word, the stinky part may be logical.  Toad (as in despicable person) and stool (as in feces) could be translated into stinky mushroom and might just well be a toadstool.  Ok...so maybe I should not have gone there.

  Second question...in folklore, mushrooms of all kinds are used as tables in Faerie Land.  Now, not knowing which mushrooms are poisonous, how in the world were faeries not killed off by eating from these fine tables.  In every depiction that I have ever seen, the mushroom tables highly resemble poisonous fungi.  (Like I said earlier, I am no mycologist and do not pretend to know anything about these things but, from looking at photos, this one surely resembles a Destroying Angel..TOXIC!! Maybe??)  And speaking of using the mushrooms as tables, this one has the appearance of being used just as such.  There is a piece of an empty hickory nut shell sitting right in the middle of the cap.  Could that have been the remnants of a meal??  Lets just hope the faeries of the Bayou were not poisoned last night as they dined by moonlight.

  Lastly, why do I find these things so fascinating?  While I have no interest in running about gathering mushrooms to eat, I do adore the fact that I find them growing just about everywhere.  I will leave the identifying to the experts (who I truly admire!) and just enjoy the beauty as I find them. And...the old dog says it is time to get in out of the fog.  He is right.  The imagination has run far enough.

Moss-covered Memories

  On the north side of the Little Bayou House, there is a trail that leads into the woods.  It meanders under the magnolia trees, between huge clumps of palmettos and down the hill to the chinkapin (chinquapin) trees. Once you make the final turn back toward the house, you happen upon a rather interesting sight.  Beneath the briers, you can find the most lovely, moss-covered log that you ever want to see!  The thing is a good fifteen feet long and has most of the bark missing.  All that is left is the heart of the tree and mounds of rotted wood.  What once was a majestic pine tree now is a delightfully interesting moss bed.

  No matter how often I hike this path, the log is always a stopping point.  It fascinates me.  I admit that this fascination comes from as far back as my childhood.  It was then that I was taught to see things a bit differently than most folks.  A moss-covered log is not some discard of nature but is a habitat for a multitude of new species of flora and fauna.  It is not some ugly trash in the forest but is a thing of natural beauty.  

  As a child, the discovery of such a log would have thrown me into a fantasy land of make believe. Hours upon hours would have been spent clearing the brambles from the area.  My small hands would have been scratched by the briers, arms bitten by ants and mosquitoes and I would have been dirty beyond belief but...my log would have become a play area,  More oft than not, my folks could find me in the edge of the woods playing in my own little world.
  
  This afternoon as Mark and I walked the back path, that log took me way back to those happy times.  I mentioned to Mark that I wanted to clear the pathways again and maybe cut the brambles away from the old log.  I am not sure he understood what was going through my head but he simply nodded in agreement and let me wallow in the possibilities of a new happy place.