Not a fun find.

   So the dreary days carry on and I am about as dismal as they come.  While I love a good rainy day, there is too much to be done to be confined indoors.  The gardens are becoming overgrown, the oak leaves are falling in mounds and the garden paths are being washed away by the torrential rains.  I do not need to be stuck indoors while letting the place run amok.

  At one point, I could stand it no longer so I slipped out the back door.  A drizzly rain still fell but I was bound and determined to be outside.  Since working in the Small Gardens was a bad idea, I headed to the woods.  There, the tree canopy would offer some protection...not much...but some.  The ground was soggy causing the footsteps to be muffled.  I am quite sure if Bat, the cat, had not been tagging along with me, my other critter friends would have been freer with their visits.  He has a way of putting a damper on my critter communications...we will have to work on that.  Instead of critter finds, I found something I wish I could have avoided.  Some rather large stinkhorns had popped up right next to the path.  These things were huge at about six inches tall and over an inch in diameter.  This was the first time I have ever noticed this type of stinkhorn and with its proximity to rotting hurricane debris, I had to wonder if perhaps this, too, washed in on the tide.  To be honest, I could have done without finding the stinkhorns.  They are not a favorite for obvious reasons.  Shortly after finding the fungi, Bat, the cat, thought it would be great fun to attack them.  Thus ended my escape.  It was time for a cat bath...not fun, either. 

Just a bit of observation...

  This afternoon, a short hike was in order.  Son and I worked all day in the yard ripping out yet more fencing and arbors.  In fact, the place looks quite different now.  Once we completed our tasks for the day, I headed down to the pier.  Along the way, a pungent odor stopped me in my tracks.  Always alert for sounds and smells, I needed to find what was the source.  Critters and plants all have distinctive odors and it is best to know what lies in the path ahead.  It is my habit to never fully depend on sight since my eyesight has been waning somewhat in recent years.  This was more of a stench than the flowery aroma of most plants.  Watch the step!  Once the source was found, it caused a fit of giggles.  Under a tall pine tree, two mushrooms grew side by side.  One was a a red-capped beauty and the other was a type of stinkhorn.  That stinkhorn, of course, was the culprit that was making the lower yard a stinky place.  It is surprising just how large of an area can be affected by such a small thing.  

  This is a Column Stinkhorn meaning it burst out of its egg-like sac with columns or fingers.  Some folks call them Devil's Toadstools while others refer to them as Devil's Fingers.  Both names seem accurate especially due to the color and smell.  The Column Stinkhorns are usually red, pink or orange and the smell is akin to a mountain of smelly socks combined with rotting flesh.  I was fortunate that only one of the mushrooms had "hatched".  

  There is one thing that confuses me with these mushrooms.  Granted, the stinkhorn "eggs" (before they burst out with their orange "fingers") resemble some sort of critter egg, it surprises me just how many folks confuse the two.  Countless times, I have been asked "Are these snake eggs or duck eggs?"  Neither!  Critter eggs are not attached to the ground by root like structures called mycelium.  It takes a good bit of talk to convince some folks that their "find" is going to hatch into stinky mushrooms and not a bundle of fluffy ducklings or a clutch of highly venomous snakes.  Oh, people.  Observe!  Notice things!  Investigate!  Be aware!  Whatever...whatever.

Its a Tad Smelly

  The other day, a friend showed me a photograph of something that had popped up in her flower garden with a question of its identity.  Stinkhorn...Devil's Toadstool...Devil's Fingers.  Yep. a foul-smelling, red mushroom had just "hatched" in her mulch.  (I say hatched because a lot of folks tend to think the round, white bud of a mushroom is actually an egg.)  She was rather miffed that something of this sort dare to invade her pristine garden plot.  "Why is it in my yard?  I do not let things like this grow here."  Well, sweet friend, get used to it.  These rascals are hard to eliminate short of digging up each "egg" and burning it.  They multiply like wildfire once they find their way into the yard and there are dozens of ways that happens.  The wind and critters can carry the spores but most likely, this mushroom found its way to her place in that lovely mulch that she had so carefully spread about her plants.  While it makes the garden look nice, many things hide in those mulch bags.  Everything from weed seeds to snails can hitch a ride in the bag right to the garden spot.

  While I am not a fan of the Devil's Toadstools (local name), I have resigned myself to the fact that I shall never eradicate them from this property.   The place is far too big and I am far too old to go around with a shovel digging up stinky fungi.  They shall just run their course and do their thing.  Aside from the stench, they are rather pretty...in a weird sort of way.  Their bright red "fingers" stand out sharply against the brown pine needles or even green grass.  My whole beef with them is not even the fact that they smell terrible and I really should not lay the blame on the fungi.  Dogs seem to love to roll on the Devil's Toadstools and then they reek for days. Why?  Why in the world would something so smelly be so appealing that you would want to wear it as perfume??  Needless to say, I keep a close watch on old Mr. PJ.  Nope....no stinky dog is sleeping in my house!

Its there!

  Sometimes the most ordinary of things can strike a chord with me and a fantastical story starts to whirl around in my brain.  I wonder about this and think perhaps I should have been an author!  Or not.  Since it takes a goodly amount of skill to ever get anything published, I probably would have still been the "starving artist".  My writing skills had better be left to this feeble attempt and not to some worthy novel. Still, those things that create wondrous illusions in my head would make for fun tales.

  What with all the interest in zombies, creatures from beyond, aliens and such, I occasionally come across something on the Bayou that would fit right in with these stories!  On my walks, I see a lot of weird things.  Take, for instance, the strange "fingers" that I found trying to dig from beneath the soil.  It was just before dark when I spied the creepy hand digging its way from some grave long forgotten.  The fingers were of the most unusual color being red and obviously from something other than human since there were only three.  Try as it might this hand (and whatever was attached) never made it completely to the surface.  In reality, this "hand" was none other than a stinkhorn mushroom that had pushed its way up in the lawn.  There it was making the yard smell a lot like a rotting corpse!  Ugh!  My imagination went wild!

  Then back behind the peach orchard near the creek bed, I found some more aliens that had landed from worlds unknown.  These were exiting their pod-shaped ship when I found them.  Their long, slender forms were ghostly white and so unlike anything that I have ever seen before. I must have startled them which caused them to sit almost motionless as soon as my presence was recognized.  These aliens may have taken over our world had I not discovered their plot and put an end to it! Actually the alien ship was a magnolia pod and the recent rains had sprouted the seeds within it.  The long slender sprouts had not been able to fully form and were on the verge of decay.  The whole scene made for quite the ghostly tale!

  I guess things are all in how you see them or all in how your own brain works.  Mine sees things in a bizarre way.  Tales of mystery are always whirring away in the cogs of my mind!  Too bad about that skill thing needed to be an author!

Siege of the Stinkhorns!

As I was out walking the hill above the Bayou, I came across something that did not make me overly happy. Normally, it is hard for me to find anything out in nature that irritates me but this nearly did just that. Our mulch guy is still dumping truckloads of mulch in the back of the house. There are huge mounds that Son goes out and spreads about in thick layers. Then when we need any for the gardens or pathways, he takes the wheelbarrow out to the heaps. The stuff is carted about the hillside to help with the landscaping projects. These mountains of mulch normally make me smile as I consider it all good for the earth. Today, however, the area did not bring smiles..it was more of ...EWWWWW! Yuck! Something smelled horrible! The stench in the area rivaled a thousand and one dirty socks! Nasty! The closer I got to the mulch piles, the stronger the stench. It smelled of rotting carrion or perhaps some massive dung pile! Ugh! Not again!

Holding my breath as I neared the mulch mountains, I could not believe what I saw. Thousands upon thousands of Stinkhorns! Devil's Toadstools! Those nasty, nasty, stinky mushrooms that smell up the place! Everywhere I looked, I saw red, gooey blobs of rotting stinkhorns, fresh perky stinkhorns and round, stinkhorn "eggs". Yep..eggs! I have a couple of little "grand-nephews" that labeled the the rounded sacks containing the new fungi as eggs. The "unhatched" stinkhorns look a lot like some strange alien egg pod that is erupting from the mulch pile so Ashton and Darius were not too far off in their descriptions. These two spend hours helping their "Mimi" (aka my sister) dig out the Devil's Toadstools and "mushroom eggs". It has become some sort of odd entertainment for the kids and sure helps my sister get her place stinkhorn free! I think those kids need to spend about the next two months digging these from my mulch mountains! The egg is sort of a dirty white blob that within a day or two will split open to reveal a new stinkhorn that will smell up the entire place. There were hundred and hundreds of eggs so I am sure that my stinkhorn days are far from over.

These stinkhorns are covered with a gooey slime that the bugs love. The stench draws the bugs near and once on the fungi, the spores stick to their legs. This spreads the spores far and wide creating "stinkhorn gardens" wherever the bug travels. I am supposing that no matter how many I pull up, I will never eradicate them completely. I am surrounded! Stinkhorns are taking over the Bayou area! Ashton! Darius! Bring your shovels and rescue me from the Stinkhorn Siege!