Fungus Among Us!

Although most of the life around the farm and forest is settling down for winter's approach, this time of year is a boom of growth if you point your eyes downward.  Mushrooms in many different shapes and sizes are popping up in all sorts of places.  Walking around is like a little treasure hunt with all sorts of surprises, and some old reliable wonders like the giant amanitas that look like they come straight out of a fairy tale.

This vibrant ruffley fungus looks like it should taste like maple candy.  It wouldn't:

This little round one popped up near the barn with some cute spots:

Luck!

This one was tiny but a light shiny pink/purple color; so cute:

A whole little town of orange button mushrooms:

Slow neighborhood traffic:

I think a frog should be sitting here:

A small amanita bulb just starting to pop up:

Another that just opened:

This one was shaped so nicely, the only one of it's cluster not to have been munched yet:

This cute amanita was hiding among some baby Christmas trees near some others the deer haven't found yet:

This little cluster remained unmunched:

Each one of these makes me smile:

Including this one that was kicked up by the deer who ate the others but must have missed it:

This was a cute little cluster of tiny white mushrooms:

And these little salmon pink mushrooms were all over the floor underneath the tall Douglas firs:

Craig found one of these that he says are edible when cooked, as they contain a compound similar to jet fuel when raw.  We won't be trying them in either preparation, but pretty cool:

Here is the track left from when the elk herd came through a couple days ago.  They like to chow the amanitas even more than the deer, but they often don't stick around long enough to find them:

And looking down the golden leaf trail into the woods: