Like Mushrooms

This afternoon when I hit the path, I was surprised to see the number of mushrooms that had sprouted up overnight like . . . well, like mushrooms.

Mushrooms have always fascinated me. It probably stems from my childhood, when the idea of POISON potentially lurking in the backyard was at once creepy and irresistible. They looked so soft and pluck-able, and I could just imagine fairies frolicking beneath their protective domes. I obediently resisted them, but I've admired them ever since.

Over the weekend I visited a friend's home in Hood River, and as we traipsed about the woods, we often stopped and pointed reverently at the fungus among us. (Sorry -- I'm my dad's daughter.) Of course I took not one single picture.

So I was thankful to return home and find that I had plenty of mushrooms to photograph right in my own neck of the woods.

Apparently slugs appreciate their presence, too. Two of the mushrooms I saw served as banquet tables, as evidenced by the slowly creeping critters and the teeny-tiny trails of scraping marks left in their wake.

Another mushroom had more definite gnaw-like marks on it. Hmmm. Squirrel?

Or maybe . . . just maybe . . . the fairies have been here, after all.