With good intentions...

by - 8:59 PM

I really tried so hard.  

I had one goal that Saturday morning and it wasn’t sleeping in.  The house had suffered too long from the beautiful summer weather, I didn’t care how nice it was outside I was going to stay inside and get the house picked up.  Except that it really was just so nice outside.  

I wandered out to the garden and looked down and that was all it took.  Now, why hadn’t I noticed that before?  After the previous nights hard rain, the sun was shining brightly that morning and the angle of its light was revealing the most amazing elements in the garden, but this was too magical to ignore and I had never noticed it before.  Quickly forgetting my house cleaning intentions I grabbed my camera.


Conditions had to be just right to see it, and there at my feet, it was as if some elf had come overnight and chipped away into the stone on my wall and left me a message of love.

After a night of rain, water had seeped into every nook and cranny
revealing some interesting things.

The patio is 3 years old, it took me 3 years to notice this.


Once I got my camera the cleaning was the furthest from my mind.  After taking pictures of the magic heart I found that a rouge sunflower seed from the feeder had found its way into my spider plant on the other side of the house and that was kind of cool, that meant more pictures.  

But, that was it I reminded myself, back inside I went to tend to the house.

What should we call this hybrid sunflower/spider plant?
I was making a dent when some scratching at the glass door revealed a tiny squirrel brother and sister. Like little children wandering from bed for breakfast they were trying to climb the panes of glass on my kitchen door only to get so high before falling back down defeated.  They may have been attracted to the smell of the banana bread I had baking in the oven but whatever the reason they looked a bit wobbly so I grabbed a handful of Sugar Pops and went outside.  They must have been pretty hungry as they didn’t seem too frightened and readily accepted some of the Pops, even letting me get pretty close to take some pictures.




Although he asked nicely I said no way to this one coming outside to observe the little guys or there would have been a squirrel meat tasting party right there in front of me and it would have ruined the magic of the morning. 

He put his best face on. 


I still said no.

He decided then that he was just going to ignore me for the rest of the day.


Sitting long enough in the grass feeding the squirrel babes some Pops I noticed some strange white things growing which I thought at first to be lichen.  When I touched them I found that they were anchored into the ground and had spines growing out of them – it turns out they are mushrooms!  Lycoperdon pulcherrimum to be exact or you can id them with a more common name of spiny puffball, that’s easier to remember!

Looking like some kind of "Whoville" this mushroom is called
Lycoperdon Pulcherrimum, although not found every year
this mushroom is not uncommon.

By now, the mushroom id'ing taking quite a bit of time and in-between a slice or two three four of banana bread and with just about a little over an hour or two of daylight left, I abandoned the idea of a clean house for a run.  Rounding the corner of a farm field I was stopped once again from my good intentions this time by hundreds of blooming sunflowers -- take some time to stop and smell the flowers this week!



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1 comments

  1. ...I don't think I'd be able to stay inside with a beautiful sunflower field like that within running distance! Gorgeous... Love those little mushrooms too!

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