Mushrooms again...

 Well, it's mushroom  season in Texas... cold autumn rains followed by warm autumn days result in rather fantastic displays in the lawns...

 

         While some people hate the toadstools, mushrooms, and fairy rings in the yard, and will immediately run outside with plastic bags and gardening gloves to restore their lawn to golf course smoothness... I like the things.  I think of them as free garden ornaments.  They're also a sign of  

 

        I've identified the species, to the best of my ability... I've never been confident of my ID of mushrooms.  Which is why I've never been tempted to harvest wild mushrooms for dinner... there's always the chance that I'll kill myself and everyone else... except of course for Morel mushrooms, nothing else looks like a morel mushroom, but I haven't run across any of them for years. 

 

        Anyway, click on the name  under the pic, and it's a link to the Mushroom Experts truly excellent site.

 

Chlorophyllum molybdites

 

 

 

Amanita thiersii 

 

 

 

And speaking of truly excellent sites... there's a new blog in the blog roll... called Eat The Weeds... The acorns are starting to fall, and I'd heard of Acorn Flour, but I'd never had any experience with it, so I did a little web search and ran across that truly excellent and extremely informative blog. I highly recommend you check it out. 

 

As for acorn flour... here's the post and it sounds like a real pain in the ole patootie, so I probably won't bother, but nice t know I can make it if I have to... 

 

 

 

 

Meandering around, and a surprise at home...

Had a long drive out today... all the way to Bridgeport Texas... I don't know why they call it Bridgeport... I didn't see a bridge, and there's definitely no port... but there we are...

I saw this rather magnificent stand of Optunia... I wish I could say it was natural, but it's a deliberately planted security barrier... unless you're driving a tank, I seriously wouldn't recommend trying to get through this...

And here's a rather magnificent scrub oak... I've always loved the meandering twisted branches on these things...

And fairly close to my house, there's a cemetary that I realized I'd never visitited... of course, I looked for cactus... But I think that other cemetary I saw them in is an exception to the norm... there's no cactus here at the Rehoboth Cemetery... I intend to look up the word Rehoboth, because I have no idea what it could possibly be referring to...

Thsi is the grave of Mary Miller... the first grave at this site...

And this is the grave of Clara Bell and Cora Lee Whitehead... twins who were born and died within a month.

And here's a distant shot of the cemetary... You can't tell from the pic, but the grounds are dotted with small wildflowers... which is really kind of a relief... I get tired of cemetaries that are maintained like golf courses. A more natural look is far more fitting to these historical sites...

And this was blooming it's fool head off when I got home... My Parodia werneri was blooming! I thought the buds were a couple days away from opening, but the heat over the last couple of days must have spurred them on... These pics don't show the colors well... the blooms are actually darker, almost royal purple...

UPDATE: The name Rehoboth is biblical...

And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, "For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land." (Genesis 26:22 ESV)

I'm still not sure that I totally understand the reference, but there it is...