My Mom. You’ve heard me talk about her here on my blog. My rock. My anchor. She’s gone from us now. So quickly and without warning; just like Daisy. My Mom died yesterday in her home of a heart attack. I am still in a state of disbelief and shock. This morning I am just numb which is allowing me to write this.

I was due to go and fetch her next week to bring her back for another 10 day stay with us. We had big plans: a reunion with her cousin; a trip to the shore; and a birthday dinner out. You see, it would have been her 81st birthday Monday August 27th. I bought her card just a few days ago. Now she’ll never read the words I so carefully picked out.

Mom was always in such good health—it was a total shock to us all. She was not a person who cared much for doctors, so had not been for any kind of check-up in I don’t know how long. We tried to get her to go, but she was made of stubborn stock.

We are heading to New York to take care of her affairs tomorrow. We will be back mid-week. My sister and her husband will also be coming. We have to take our three dogs with us as the boarding kennel is completely booked. I don’t know what Mom’s cat will think of all of them. She’s a bit on the wild side and has never allowed me to touch her.

Please keep us in your thoughts.

Here is a photo taken at Christmas with Daisy. Who knew then that they would both be gone from us within a month of each other. I will be writing more about Mom when I can manage it. I haven’t even begun to imagine how much she will be missed.

I know most people don’t even notice mushrooms in their yard or when walking in the forest, but both Rick and I are fungi lovers. Our cabin walks back in Colorado were always enhanced by finding new species to identify.

Since moving to NJ, we are fungally challenged. We are not familiar with Eastern shrooms at all. So far this year our mushrooms have been keeping a very low profile with not much rainfall. However, over the past two weeks we’ve had rain mixed with high humidity allowing the mycelium (ground molds) to grow and push forth from the ground in all kinds of mushrooms.

Over the past week my morning coffee walk around the yard has yielded great rewards. Mushrooms are fleeting. You have to catch them as soon as they pop up out of the ground because soon they will have “blossomed” and are gone. Or the squirrels eat them. It’s fun to see which ones get nibbled on and which ones are left alone for the slugs. I took some photos of a few when they first appeared and then what they looked like within about 8 hours or so. A few we have identified, but some we aren’t sure yet what they are. I know I will bore some of you with these photos, but I do want them archived in my blog so I’ll remember them next year.

I think this one is an amanita citrina (poisonous) I took before and after shots:

I don’t know what these yellow ones are, but they have a whole little family in the front side yard. They’ve popped up all over. I think they’re pretty. The squirrels don’t eat them.

These are Frost’s Boletes. They have pores instead of gills. Nothing ate them but the slugs ... very porous and icky.

Another pored mushroom. (not identified)

We have a great number of these ugly looking mushrooms. I don’t know what they are. Again, a before and after shot.

A gem-studded puffball:

We’ve had quite a few of these very large mushrooms growing in the leaf mold. (unidentified)

And least, but certainly not least—especially in sheer numbers—the squirrel’s favorite: a russula. These mushrooms come in a variety of colors. I didn’t take the time to figure out exactly which kind of russula this is.

I just wish the elegant stinkhorns would come up again! They were so strange. Nothing could be more un-elegant. Click here to see them last year.

That’s it for mushroom show-and-tell this time. Hopefully we’ll have a few more interesting ones pop up over the next month. We are certainly getting the rain and humidity necessary for them to thrive. At least something thrives in this humidity!

After a surprise hour-long thunderstorm just before dawn this morning which dumped over an inch and a half of rain (which went East of us to produce a tornado in Brooklyn!), we’ve had a really scorchingly hot and humid day here. Whew. Several times I walked outside and gasped for air. It felt like I was breathing in liquid. Nasty stuff. At one time we had a heat index of 100.2. The dogs only went outside to do the necessary doggie things; otherwise they were camped in the house with me. Just a few minutes ago Rick let them out for “finals” and he yelled for me to come quick! I never know what this means but I always try to get there ASAP.

This is what he wanted me to see:

Mr. Toad had made it all the way up on our deck and the dogs thought he was pretty interesting. Now for this toad to find his way up on the deck he would have to hop up a minimum of eight or nine steps. No easy feat for this little guy.

After I toad-ally blinded him with the camera flash, Rick picked him up and took him back down the stairs into the yard. I hope he wasn’t trying to make his way into the air-conditioned house because his attempt failed horribly. Hopefully he’s thankful we “saved” him. If not, he’s really pissed off right now with having to hop his way back up all those stairs!

Sleep well, Mr. Toad!

Johnny is feeling so much better now. We found a traveling “spa” to come and give him a tune-up. The past three times I’ve mowed the yards I’ve had to jump start him. Poor guy. Now he has a new battery, his blades are sharpened, and he has a new oil filter. He runs like new!

So, ride along with me as I mow the side front yard. You can see just how much grass we have, and that’s only the front! Not too shabby for all one-handed driving if I have to say so myself!

I had to dodge several interesting mushrooms as I rode along:

I love this one because its veil (the part that covers the gills before the mushroom is fully open) is hanging like a pretty, frilly skirt around its stem.

We finally have some mushrooms coming up and I’ll be sharing some more photos of them with you tomorrow. Mushrooms are fascinating! Well, at least to me they are.

I hope you all enjoyed your ride!

This weekend Rick and I were pool rats. We spent more time in and around the pool that we ever have. The weekend weather was perfect for it: sunny blue skies, warm but not hot, and just a touch on the humid side. The pool temperature has been hovering between 82 and 84 this past week. Perfection!

After a trip to the farmer’s market in Warwick we came home with our purchases for our Sunday lunch. We had purchased two different kinds of lettuce, a Sicilian eggplant (very light purple in color, less bitter and no seeds!) and some fresh goat cheese. We sliced the eggplant thickly and cut a pocket in it, then put a round of goat cheese inside, drizzled the outside with olive oil and grilled it. A nice green salad rounded out our lunch. We ate poolside under the umbrella, sipping a cold glass of white wine.

After lunch we settled in on our lounges and just floated around letting the breeze blow us wherever it took us. We floated around in companionable silence. Once in awhile our lounges would ever so gently bump into the other, sending us off in different directions. Very relaxing. When we got hot we just rolled off our floats and swam a little; then back on the floats again to read. Before we knew it the afternoon was on the wane.

Nighttime swims are our favorite though. With tiki torches lit, the cicadas getting noisier every night, it just doesn’t get any better than this. In the following vid listen for Rick’s splash as he jumps in, then watch the reflection of the tiki torch as the waves distort it.

Ahhh ... wish you were here!