Fungi Fun Guy!

Well I think these are Boletes that look like they have seen better days. 

I found these not far from an old tall oak in our forest that has a racoon den in its top.

Remember the ones I said were Wolf Farts? These are the same ones a few days later.

So I think some fungi are only beautiful when they are just coming out of the ground. 

I thought I'd found Turkey Fan Fungi. But no I didn't!

The Scientific name I believe is: Daedaleopsis confragosa. 
Try to say that a few times quickly. I can't.

I prefer a common name like Blushing Bracket [if it turns red], another name is Thin mazed flat polypore. 

That doesn't sound very memorable either.

I'm just going to call it .. the Fake Turkey Fan Fungi.

The Turkey Fan Fungi.

Scientific name: Trametes versicolor

I found this about 200 feet from the other one. Last year, this log had a different kind of fungi on it and at the base of the tree where half the tree is sort of alive.

I found white jelly fungi all over one section of our woods. Some of the pieces were rather large and looked like the common jelly fungi of Witch's Butter but pure white.

I like the common name which is easy to remember.

Snow Fungus.

Scientific name: Tremella fuciformis

Apparently this is 'good' stuff which has anti-inflammatory properties. Um. Still not sure I'd go with eating this. You can purchase different forms of this fungi to eat, to take as a pill, or to use on your skin.

I know there is so much we don't know about what is growing around us.

Then I found this which was aged and old. Curious that I first thought someone had left some material in the woods.

I have no clue what it might be. Obviously it grew a long time ago and turned black.

Fungi/mushrooms are very short lived. The following is some sort of Japanese Umbrella fungi, I think. I found it at 8 am when I headed out to check the fences.

I returned to look at it after I'd done chores and picked sweet corn.
In two hours, it looked like this....

These fungi/molds/mushrooms are constantly changing.

I consider myself extremely lucky to find them as they Pupawee. That is a Potowatami word for Emerge or Passage. 

Here are some more slightly ugly looking fungi, but I found them quite beautiful in the way they were grouped and in all different stages of their short lives.

Ink caps

I took a series of photos of one type of fungi that I think is pretty interesting. I found them when they were fresh and glistening. I took photos in a series of days to see what they looked like when they were done with their job. I won't put it here today but will save it for another time.

After 4.5 inches of rain in the past 24 hours, I'm headed out to check out the woods once more and see what will surprise me.

I leave you with this Fun Guy. 

One of my tiny soldiers sitting on an Oyster Mushroom.

Rain, Slugs, and Bugs

So the rain brought out Slugs and bugs...

And very cool fungi. Some sort of slime mold??? 

Found Black Nightshade. Nasty stuff.

Slug heads in Fungi.

Witch's butter perhaps? Being guarded by my tiny soldiers.

Bright yellow slime mold. Some of it creeping over the Witch's Butter.

Chicken of the Woods? Old?

Grasshopper.

A sluggo stand off...

A very cheerful dog enjoying the cooler weather...

Ready???

Hummingbird Moth!

This is the fastest moving moth I have ever encountered and this is only the second time in 30 years that I've seen one. The first time I could only watch and wonder.

It probably took at least 30 or more tries before I finally got half way decent shot of this moth.

It's wings are translucent and it is sort of beautiful and ugly at the same time. 

That was my rainy day. Not that interesting unless you are a bug or slug or some sort of slime mold.

However.

I had some very cool stuff happen today. Thursday. I'm still mulling it over.

 

Don't play with your food

I think every child has heard that from their mom. However. While making cookies I thought this would be fun.
I made a diorama out of an old wooden box and used ambient light from the kitchen window as my light source.

I did some more reading and read about a do it yourself softbox for lighting. Controlling the lighting is pretty fun. I'd tried that a week or so ago with the Dinosaurs, Dragons, and a lamp.

Two years ago I'd created a similar light box and photographed an apple. That experiment was just to do a product type of photo.
It sort of worked, but I still had a shadow on the lower part of the photo. 

I had a big cardboard box sitting next to the back door and I needed to do something with it. I remembered the softbox I'd made and thought I'd try another one. I got out the box knife and made a new lightbox. I cut out two sides and the top. 

Getting a light to shine down was difficult since I only had two lamps.

But it might work for diffused light from above the object I would be photographing.

I added scrapbook paper as a backround and then scrounged around for some items that might look neat.

I used rocks and 1931 Singer sewing parts. I found the tiny needles folded up cardboard labeled London 1851. I used a tiny Halo figurine.

The scrapbook paper provided a 'grunge' looking backdrop.

I looked around for something like a circuit board for a backdrop for the tiny soldiers.
The best I could come up with was more discarded Singer parts. These parts came from my Aunt's sewing machine she purchased in 1931.

I had a bit of fun with it too. 

Beam me UP!

And then I switched things up a bit.

This would have worked better if you couldn't see where I joined two white pieces of paper together. Uffdah! 

My little Not - Fairy Garden Dragons. 

Cute Dragon and Forest Dragon.

I really like Dragons!

This I lit up from the top by putting the camera on a timer and then grabbing the lamp and shining it down from the top of the box without knocking stuff over.

And for a bit of silliness.

I have no idea why I selected this, maybe because it amused me. I think cute hearts would have been funnier as a backdrop.

Giddyup!

Then this afternoon after a friend saw the dinosaur eating the cookie ... she texted me that it was so UNFAIR that her Zoo Crew she'd sent me didn't get any goodies!

I had made a cake [and believe me...that is a big effort!]. So after Rich had a piece, I ...

well

I...

played with the food...

The Zoo Crew !

The Death of my Old Faithful Camera

 

I started to get these every once

in a while...see below...

so I knew it's time was 

coming to 

an end.

The Oak Tree was the last shot ever for my Old Olympus. I have no idea how many shots or 'clicks' were on it. 
Apparently there is something called a Shutter Count. Being a mirrorless camera, the count may last longer? The mirror doesn't have to flip up and down each time you use it.

Truthfully, I just read about that on some site regarding shutter life expectancy. 

The camera was having issues for quite a long time. However, being raised by a mom who believed that you had to get the 'goody' out of anything ever owned, I kept using it. It only worked in Program Mode or in Manual Mode for the past two years. 
That was fine. I don't think all the 'modes' are really necessary any way. Program Mode allows the camera to act a bit like Auto and pick a general setting that should work for the scene. Manual allows so much more control.

Anyway, I digress. 

Since I got the Old Oly, I have almost used it daily. I took it with me all of the time. It bashed around in my backpack. I'd purchased a nice sling pack for it which had a zipper failure so when I slung the pack over my shoulder the camera tumbled out. That was after I'd owned it for only two months. 

After two more zipper failures, I tossed the sling pack and opted for modifying a regular backpack for carrying the camera. 

Even the Little Soldiers couldn't fix it. The pronounced it a goner.

Of course the electronics just shut down. The cost of repair would be nearly two to three hundred dollars. 

I think I will wait to send in the camera I will replace it with, ---- my other older Olympus until after the election. I think the post office will be overwhelmed for a bit right now handling ballots.

I leave you with a couple of my recent favorites from this camera just before it gave up the ghost.

There is not a lot of opportunities for Infrared during the winter. However I think black and white IR light would still be stunning in a black and white type of landscape.

So why is it that I am having such a hard time parting with my old camera?

In search of ...Fungi and Fun

Finally we have had some rain! It was hard to go out and find one of my favorite things to photograph because it was SO dry! So I went to the creek before the scheduled rains and looked around for...

Fungi....
Mushrooms.....
Tiny stuff found on the forest floor.....

I did find some extremely tiny fungi growing orange and red on moss...on a log in the creek. I actually could not see the individual forms without using the Microscope Mode on the Olympus Tough camera.

These were smaller than the point of a lead pencil!

This is what I found:

Ahhh, here is the totally cool Fungi I found! I love how they lined up on the log and there is a slug that seems to be visiting!

Fungi Family:

The supervisor was checking things out from the log above me:

Of course this was before the weather turned absolutely awful. The temperatures are in the 40's and there has been a bone chilling rain for 24 hrs. .

I pulled apart our cabin heater and cleaned it thoroughly, then got it started to warm up the house. 
Brrr! I cut up a small batch of tomatoes and some apples to dehydrate.
My loyal little soldiers are protecting my lids and jars so when I start making jelly from my summer haul of berries, I will have lids.

The tomatoes are slowly ripening and not many at a time right now.

So there it is. A very dull day. But I got a lot of indoor work done. Including attacking the cob webs downstairs. 

Meanwhile, if the weather stinks...

I'll look for things to do inside....while I wait for it to warm up later this week!

Goodbye April

The end of April is here and the weather is cold and rainy with gray skies. All the makings of a dull day.
I took one of my Grandmother's spring colored handkerchiefs, a daffodil, and tea cup and put them on an old wooden box.

I thought I'd entertain myself while waiting for FedEx. There was a package I was going to have to sign for and I didn't want to miss it. I'd had issues with the postal person deciding not to deliver to my house for one reason or another.

Anyway. I thought I'd entertain myself by doing some indoor Still Life with some fresh daffodils.

I'd heard that black felt was good to carry in the field to isolate flowers from anything else in the back round. So I draped some felt from my fold up clothes hanger in the living room and set flowers in a tiny vase in front of it.

It worked nicely.

And because I was in the mood for something fun...I thought...

Morel Hunting season is just around the corner.

Goodbye April you were an interesting month.