Random Subject: Fungi.

Despite a good-intentioned resolution to do better at posting to this blog, you will notice a scarcity of recent material. Ah, well. Would have been nice to capture this Real Actual Winter in pixels, but it's been too durn cold to take the camera out... And for everyone buried in snow and ice and slush, lush photos of summer that never made it here at the time would be terribly unfair; cabin fever is running rampant enough.

Then the idea of posting pics of the fabulous mushrooms I encountered during the cool, wet spring we had last year (anything in 2013 can be called last year, yes?) bubbled to the top of my brain while my body was in its usual early-morning, semi-subconcious state...

So, shrooms:

This gorgeous thing had me just about jumping up and down with glee when I discovered it alongside one of the main roads through Belleplain State Forest. (And when I pulled over to check out the clump of orange I had spotted as I drove by, I found that there were more than just this one. That black circle is my camera's approximately 2" wide lens cap; these things were huge. The photos don't do them justice.)

"Small" one.

A little mushroom alongside the stairs to work... Love the way the cap split.

Wee itty bitty teensie tiny mushrooms right in the path

at Eldora Preserve, The Nature Conservancy.

More from along the main path at the Eldora Preserve:

 Waiting for a fairie to arrive!

Fungus Amungus.

It's been a good year for mushrooms--once we had some rain at the end of the summer, anyway. I made a token attempt to identify some of the interesting things but gave up. I'm not really concerned about what to call them since I have no plans whatsoever to taste any, even were I starving...

New, perhaps? and relatively small.

Waaaay past their prime. *lol*

Nice little clump peaking out of the scruffy back yard.

Another patch of the same.

Playing with focal point...

And orientation.

Mushrooms might be good little subjects, unlikely to move or be moved by an errant breeze, but you have to be fast when shooting in early morning light!

Lookee what I found when I relocated that black widow:

Wow.

There have been even more fungi I didn't photograph--giant puffballs, a huge patch of big 'shrooms right alongside one of our major roads... No wonder so many people are fascinated by these things.