Maybe I spend too much time in the patch of woods within our yard. At least once during the day you can find me, camera in hand, wandering around, looking for changes. Maybe a new mushroom or turned leaf will catch my eye.

The other day it was this spider web. The sun was glinting off what looked like a sticky trail within in. Very odd.

The more I studied this photo, the more intrigued I became. Turned on its side, the sticky trail is surely a dragon in disguise. Can you see his head turned just so? The arched neck? The long, lovely wings spread wide? Tell me you see him too!

It makes sense since this is the part of the woods where the faerie was seen.

The web changed yet again when I took a photo with the flash.

I do think this part of my yard is special. It keeps drawing me back in. The bear the other day thought so too when he took a nap in the same area. Is it in my imagination?

Yesterday we ventured into new territory with the canoe: Monksville Reservoir, which is only a few miles from home. I’ve long been fascinated by the standing dead forest that came into existence when the land was flooded and the reservoir made in the early 1980s.

I took photos last fall from the far shore and I can’t wait for the changing colors this year now that we can get closer with the canoe.

We paddled into the eerie, weathered forest.

At times the trees seemed to reach out for our canoe (or maybe it was my overactive imagination!). The moon was still visible: can you spot it?

The slight breeze made for some interesting reflections.

Join us!

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!

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!

To end my “in the garden” nature series, here are some butterflies. All were taken in my flower garden.