The first part of August was unusually wet this year, too wet to mow the grass. As a result, treasures sprang from the ground in the form of a variety of mushrooms, pushing aside earth and rocks to make their way toward the sun. They grew before our eyes. With all the things in this world one has to wait for, it's nice to have some instant gratification.
Mushrooms were strewn across lawns like miniature pyramids.
There were shiny red mushrooms, glossy as candied apples, and smooth white mushrooms and white mushrooms with bumps, and brown mushrooms, and green and orange and yellow ones.
Deer, chipmunks, rabbits, and squirrels eat mushrooms, and we're told that turtles find them irresistible. A lady near here saw a mushroom in her field, big as a dinner plate, with eight turtles arranged around it, feasting as if they were seated at the table in King Arthur's court.
On the underside of the mushrooms, held in honeycomb-like containers...
and in neat spore filing cabinets, are millions of potential new mushrooms.
