In the PNW, you can find mushrooms in your lawn, growing on trees (and, if you have a moisture problem, even in your house). Mushrooms like it soggy – think dripping moss in the rainforest soggy. Slow-moving giant slug slime soggy. Squishy, oozing mud soggy.
It’s been wet here in KY for a stretch, and mushrooms have appeared. Everywhere. As a rule, we don’t eat mushrooms unless we know for certain that they’re edible. Wild mushrooms, like other wild plants, can easily be misidentified by novice foragers. Caution in eating mushrooms seems to be instinctual, at least in some animals- our older dog who is otherwise very food adventurous will not eat mushrooms (unless smothered in spaghetti sauce, then they don’t really count). Seems like it might be hard wired. Continue reading “A Multitude of Mysterious Mushrooms”
As the pullets begin to lay, we keep finding oddities in the nest boxes. Today’s find is one we haven’t seen before – not a rubber egg, a giant egg, a fart egg, or eggs with seams, wrinkles, or striations – this one looks like it has a stem.
The second group of incubator ducklings (the “gang of five”) has been spending time among the juveniles and adult ducks. It’s entertaining to watch their interactions with the older ducks and drakes. The ducklings are quick to defend their territory against intruders (the curious adults and teens), “biting” back at exploring bills poked through the exercise pen. Good thing wire separates them.
The adult Muscovies have been lodging in the chicken coop for the past couple of weeks. It’s amazing that they knew it was time to leave the small coop to Phoebe, who only has a week to go until hatch day; one evening, we went to round everyone up and we discovered that the adults had all just moved into the chicken coop. Clever creatures. Phoebe’s in the “grumpy broody” phase, and they must have known it was coming.
It was time to replace the cruddy old kitchen sink fixture with a newer model. The existing faucet, which came with the house, was too short to get pots and bottles under it; even better, the scale and corrosion around the sprayer head was so gross-looking that no one wanted to use it. After doing some research, we ordered a sleek stainless fixture online. It had arrived, so we set about installing it.