Mushroom Hunting... with help

It's definitely mushroom season. The ground is permanantly soggy, even if it doesn't rain for weeks. The sun bareley peeks over the steep hill that makes the southern horizen at my house. Tucked in the deep fold of the ridges, there won't be enough sun to dry this place out for months.

Which is fine by me, because each season has it's beauty. Nevermind my chattering teeth and hunched shoulders. My numb fingers. My use of the oven as a second heater. Look at these flowering fungi that bloomed recently. Purty! Now, I've heard that there are some edible ones, expensive delicacies even, native to this area, but I'm allergic, so don't worry, I won't be sampling my finds. Not that I could tell which was which anyway.

It was four thirty and starting to get dark, so you can't make out these ones too well, but it was a veritable bouqet of black mushrooms. Ok, it was a pile. A rotting pile of mushrooms. But it was a BIG pile, so it earned a photo.

Maggie and Sebastian thought it called for some investigating as well. Maggie tested it's structural integrity while her sister gave it proboscal interogation. I may have made that word up. Or maybe not. One can't be expected to have a full mental catalog of every english word. Nor can one be expected not to improvise. Perhaps one should not refer to one's self as one. Nor use nor. Ok then, "Sebastian got her sniff on." By the look on her face my boouqet description was wrong on so many levels. Mmmmmm, rotting fungi.

By this time Pheonix's paws were cold, and my sprawling on the ground for photo ops provided the footwarming invitation he needed. Not that I REMEMBER saying, "Here Pheonix, hop on, I'll give you a piggy back ride home". He was impressively stubborn about my attempts to dislodge him. You can just make out his sillouhette as I angled and contorted my camera arm to capture photographic representation of the hierarchy in my home. Yes, I may have even felt honored that he leaped up on my back. Or maybe it was just a warm glow of love, yeah, that's it. I just realized that while I'm photo hunting, my kitties are lap hunting. Well, I'd say we all got what we wanted on that hike. Except perhaps the whiff of 'shroom scent for Sebastian.