July Trail Keepers

This month was awesome! The trail had almost no trash on it. It looked like it had been freshly mowed which meant that the trash had also been picked up when we got there. The weather has been muggy and hot, so we were sort of anticipating lots of mosquito's and sweat, but what we found were the ideal conditions for MUSHROOMS (and very few mosquito's and the trail is so shady it wasn't terribly hot). These were the first ones we saw. The kids are always more interested in running on ahead and picking up the trash, so they missed these, but they certainly got our attention and from then on my mind was on finding more! I love mushrooms. They make me think of fairies and pixies and the magical world. I wonder who lives under these?
Here is Sarah C the mushroom master explaining all about how to tell which ones are poisonous and which aren't, but I think it is probably wise to just not eat mushrooms in the wild unless you know for absolutely sure what kind they are. A lot of mushrooms look like other mushrooms and you can be easily tricked if you don't know exactly what you are looking for. It doesn't make them any less intriguing though.
Don't kid yourself, but my dear friend Sarah C is a unicorn at heart... I couldn't not put this one in for everyone to see.
Some of the kids pushing Lyle. I always wonder what they are talking about.
Here are the adults checking out some mushrooms Sarah had picked up. They were examining how easily these mushrooms bruised and all the parts of them. It's almost too bad the kids missed out on this, but when they are interested in mushrooms they will learn about them.Here are the mushrooms she was holding. They turned blue where ever you touched them. You could watch it happen. It was really cool to watch the transformation happen.

These last two are my favorite pics from the night. I just love the world of mushrooms. You can stomp on them and you can spray them, but they are always there under the soil awaiting the right conditions to coming out and creating a world unto themselves. We take mushrooms for granted, we think they are awful because they are poisonous and they destroy yards, but they are doing what they are supposed to do. They are such a part of the decomposition process which is what provides nutrients to the plants we eat and the energy they put off into the air for us to breathe. The process of things breaking down would be slower were it not for mushrooms. Instead of stomping them and being afraid of them, we should celebrate and imagine what all is going on under there that we don't know about yet or that we can't see. Isn't it just fascinating to think that there are 1000's of other mushrooms simply waiting for the right conditions to come out and that this is only one of the many possibilities for the spot it emerged from?

Once again, I am humbled by the beauty and creativity of our magnificent planet and I am thankful for being aware enough to look down and notice these little treasures! Go out and see if you see any mushrooms and what might be lurking under them and tell me if you see any fairies!

To see the rest of the pics from the night you can go to our web album here. There are more of the kids (all of them, I think).http://picasaweb.google.com/quiltingearth/71608TrailKeepers