Mama Mushroom and her Babies

I am fascinated by the number and variety of fungi that favor the banks of the creek, and even our front lawn. This is especially surprising since the landscaping around our house is positively desert/tropical. We seem to have our own little micro-climate up here. Mushrooms like to grow under oak trees and we do have a lot of those on the front lawn, where there is a large group of very big ones.

This morning it was crisp, clear and sunny--a lovely day to go to the Christmas tree farm right down the road from the farmhouse in Sebastopol. OilMan and I decided to stick with the artificial tree this year, but Dana wanted to cut a fresh one down, despite the fact that none of the men/boys in her family showed any interest in going along to help. OilMan didn't want to go either, so it was going to have to be" girl power" to get the job done.

Naturally we picked a tree with a trunk that was 4" in diameter, might well be too tall to fit into her house and was about as far away from the car as one could get. We managed to cut it down, load it onto the cart and drag it to the barn where Dana paid for it. The brawny man took over from there, carrying it all of 20 feet to the car. Back at Dana's house, we dragged it out of the car and stuck it in a bucket of water in the driveway. With a little judicial trimming of the trunk it appears that it will be just about exactly as tall as the ceiling.

Back at home, OilMan got our artificial tree out of the garage, where the brawny mover put it just 3 weeks ago, and set it up in the corner of the living room. Now all we have to do is trim it with the contents of our boxes and boxes of bird's nests and ornaments. The lights are already on it--a major selling point for going artificial. Tomorrow I will look for a pine scented candle.