All the rain has led to a bumper crop of mushrooms here in New Jersey. The field behind our apartment building is littered with them, I suppose because the summer drought created a thick mat of dead grass. The fungi are feasting away!
I took the photo above of a particularly nice one. Most of the mushrooms I'm seeing are much more pedestrian:
Walking around out there yesterday, I was reminded of the poem "Mushrooms" by Sylvia Plath, a longtime favorite poet of mine. Very whitely, discreetly, quietly, these mushrooms are taking over our field! (Or have we taken over theirs? Hmmm...)
I was also reminded of "fairy rings," which is a term you don't hear much these days. (Come to think of it, you never hear the word fairy, except in the derogatory sense.) I couldn't find any really good fairy rings in the field (nothing like that photo with the Wikipedia entry -- holy cow!) but I did find what looks like a partial ring:
I've never done mushrooms. An opportunity missed -- but somehow I don't mind.
The Moon
ReplyDeleteshines
on a cat
Meow
As a native Swede, I am particularly proud of my love poetry suite Sonnets for Katie.
My Poems
My wallpaper art Babes!)
Yours,
- Peter Ingestad, Sweden
Mushrooms are so fascinating because they spring up and then are gone so quickly. This makes them magical and ripe for stories of the fairies and elves that surround them.
ReplyDelete'Shrooms are actually very gentle and fun, as hallucinogenic highs go.
ReplyDeleteGreat pics, as always.
I hear about fairies all the time, running (as I do) in pagan circles. I like the half fairy circle you found. Very cool.
So glad you sold your apartment. Onwards and upwards!
In France you would pick a bunch of them and take them to the local pharmacist, who is schooled in sorting them into GOOD and BAD mushrooms. You might have something delectable growing right out back!
ReplyDeleteCan you check out what kind you have there? That might be some interesting research.
ReplyDeleteBack when we were first married there was a fairy ring in our yard. We were HIGHLY entertained by it because were were in a small town with a seminary (we met at seminary) & we thought it was great fun to have something "witchy" growing in our yard.
ReplyDeletedriving through Ireland, you'll see little wooden signs (sometimes arrows) with Fairy Ring painted on them--they always seem to lead down dirt roads deep into the countryside. We followed little wooden hands pointing to fairy rings in several counties but never did find the elusive sites.
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