New blog heading picture...

Did you notice my new blog heading picture of the mushrooms? You know photography is another of my hobbies and I have been waiting to show you some pictures I took of mushrooms around our house. These were taken in 2008 when I was walking Gabby so aften as a young puppy. I was amazed at how many mushrooms we had and how many DIFFERENT ones there were.

We live in a cove of upland hardwoods in western NC. We get lots of rain, usually. We've had 4" at our house since Friday night (2 days, 3 nights) so I suppose moisture is what mushrooms need to grow. I went out this morning and took more pictures of this year's mushrooms and will be sharing those another day. But take a look at these!

These are growing out of an old stump. Notice you can see 5 or 6 mushrooms in the picture.

I love the little layers on the bottom of this yellow one.

And this little white fellow is so neat with all his bumps and protrusions.

Here are some growing out of the side of a bank. I've put my hand beside one so you an see how thick it is--its stem is larger than my thumb. And you can't tell, but the top of this variety is a beautiful purple.

This one is peeping out of the ferns. Some like to be under cover more than others.

I have lots more pictures I could show and will during the fall. I had no idea so many varieties of mushrooms would grow in such a close proximinity to each other! My husband keeps suggesting that SURELY some of them are edible, but I'm not willing to risk it since some are also poisonous. Oh, well, I can enjoy them without eating them!!

Hope you enjoyed them, too! Smiles, Laura