'Shroomin'

So...Chandra and I went out for a walk this morning. We did the trail across the street and followed it on around to the light by the schools. Taking a "shortcut" home led us through the woods between the primary and intermediate schools. Wow, what amazing discoveries were waiting for us there! Lots and lots of photos for you below...more on Flickr if you are interested in seeing them. We saw: mushrooms, a HUGE green caterpillar, a LONG snake skin, and a box turtle! All within the space of 90 minutes. We were amazed by the sheer number of different mushrooms around here. Some are edible, some are poisonous...they are all beautiful when you stop to really look at them up close. We cleaned up the remains of some kids' beer party (cans - about 20 of them) and also discovered a sort of Chapel in the Woods that we didn't know existed. Such a fun morning. After resting at my house, (and getting some water to rehydrate ourselves) we made a quick stop at the Book Owl...no luck finding a mushroom identification guide but it was good to stop in, nonetheless.

The first mushrooms we saw were along the sidewalk across from the high school...

Big fat caterpillar

That's Chandra's hand...just to give you some perspective on the size of this 'shroom

Puffballs

Can't remember the names of these but they were quite pretty growing on the logs

This looks like a painter's palette...

but it is really conjoined mushrooms! And edible. Chandra took this one home for cooking...

Snake skin

Very poisonous 'shroom

These pinks ones were just pretty (could be poisonous, we weren't sure) but look at the little white one growing beside them...it was still down under the earth and leaves.

Box turtle

Same box turtle but from another angle to show colouring of his shell...gorgeous!

This mushroom was not only pretty, it's underside (skirt?) was very interesting because there were no pores or gills.