Another Choice Mushroom

Yesterday we were driving down a gravel road when I saw this oak tree along the side of the road covered with orange mushrooms.  We pulled over and took way too many pictures of it.   When I got home I looked it up in my Mushroom Field Guide.  They’re called Chicken Mushrooms or Chicken of the Woods and are choice edible mushrooms.   The book says they taste just like chicken.  Okay, I’ve heard that line before, but we’re actually thinking about trying these.  They sound totally safe and there’s nothing in the world Jim likes better than chicken!  

 

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The other night Mike stopped over to see the blob but he wasn’t able to tell us what it was.   He’s seen this before and knows it’s some sort of egg sac, but that’s about it.  It’s all washed away now.   Thank you Toodie for identifying the big ol’ caterpillar.  Don’t know why it was here.  It’s not like we have a tomato crop out front or anything.

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Yesterday one of the other beaver dams up stream from ours must have sprung a leak.  Jim was outside and could hear  the sound of fast running water.  He went down by the dam and the water was just pouring over it and over the little bridge we have to cross the creek.  He came back to get me and the camera and by the time we got down there the water had gone down some, but it was still way higher than most of the time.  Usually it’s just a trickle under the bridge.Good thing the beavers out in our pond are such hard workers.   They were out in the early evening doing their repairs on the hole the water cut into the old dam.It’s really a strange sensation to be standing on the other side of the dam and being just about eye level with the water.  Sure hope it holds.