Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: growing on a log

This morning, it's back to posting 10 more photos of fungi from our visit to Rod Handfield's acreage. I think these may be the last few odds and ends that I will be adding from this trip. Sorry about the lack of IDs for so many of the fungi, but at least I have made a photo record of many of the species seen. On that day, 8 September 2019, we had such a wonderful four and a half hours, searching for different kinds of fungi in the amazing forest on Rod Handfield's land, SW of Calgary. I think this was our tenth visit - the first one I went on, being on 25 June 2009 - each one resulting in various different species. It was so overwhelming this day! You didn't know which direction to face and which mushroom to photograph first. They were everywhere! Such a contrast to our visit on 6 August 2017, when basically there were no mushrooms (other than maybe three), because everywhere had been so very dry. A day like this can be so exhausting, not just from the walking, but also because of all the excitement. That night, I slept well. The quality of many of my photos is not the best, as the day was very overcast - the last thing one wants when trying to take photos deep in the forest. After leaving Rod's, it did rain. I had driven myself there instead of carpooling, so that I could drive some of the backroads in the area after we had finished. The forecast was for sun and cloud - and I had foolishly believed it. The rain put an end to my plans and I headed for home. I'm so glad I had checked a special little spot near Rod's first thing in the morning, when I got there a bit too early. A few years ago, there was a beautiful display of Fly Agaric / Amanita muscaria mushrooms growing there, but not since then. To my absolute delight, there were maybe half a dozen, in different stages of development. Surprisingly, we didn't come across a single one in Rod's forest this year. As always, thank you so much, Rod, for so generously allowing us to explore your property. This has been my favourite place to visit for quite a number of years now. We greatly appreciate your kindness - you are always so welcoming, and we learn so much and discover so many beautiful things. Thank you, Karel, for leading the group and helping with some of the identifications. For the rest, "fungus" or "mushroom"will have to be sufficient. As usual, any IDs given are always tentative, not 100% confirmed. Rule is, if you are not an expert in mycology, do not pick wild mushrooms to eat!

"Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to several kinds of unrelated eukaryotic organisms that can live freely as single cells, but aggregate together to form multicellular reproductive structures. Slime molds were formerly classified as fungi but are no longer considered part of that kingdom. Although not related to one another, they are still sometimes grouped for convenience within the paraphyletic group referred to as kingdom Protista. More than 900 species of slime mold occur all over the world. Their common name refers to part of some of these organisms' life cycles where they can appear as gelatinous "slime". Most slime molds are smaller than a few centimeters, but some species may reach sizes of up to several square meters and masses of up to 30 grams." From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold I will add several previously posted photos of various slime molds in a comment box below. They come in all sorts of colours and forms. This photo was taken five days ago, on 6 August 2016, when I went on a mushroom foray at Rod Handfield's acreage. Though this was a fungi day (well, morning), we also came across a few wildflower species, too. I found the whole day physically and mentally exhausting (a mix of stress and excitement). It was a great day, too, thanks to friend, Sandy! She very kindly picked me up around 8:15 am and we drove SW of the city and SW of Millarville to Rod Handfield's acreage. For a number of years, this has been one of my favourite places to explore, as Rod's forest tends to be full of all sorts of beautiful treasures. It is one of the two best places that I know for mushrooms, the other being Brown-Lowery Provincial Park. This year has turned out to be great for fungi, thanks to all the endless, torrential rain we have been getting the last few weeks, and are still getting, apart from the scattering of sunny days. This year has so far had such weird weather - a very mild, dry winter, a spring that was as dry and hot as a summer, and now a wet, thundery summer. We were expecting this year to not be good for mushrooms. We met up with a group of other interested people, most of whom we didn't know, and we searched the land for fungi. Right at the start, I was telling Sandy that on the last visit there (or one of the last), maybe four years ago (17 August 2010, so six years ago - how time flies!), we had seen a beautiful Amanita muscaria / Fly agaric mushroom growing just a few feet from the start of the hike. Sure enough, there were several growing in exactly the same spot on Saturday, which was so exciting. Later in the walk, we saw two other patches of absolute beauties of this hallucinogenic, poisonous species. The rain was spitting during our walk, and the forest was so dark, but amazingly, some of my photos came out well enough. Thanks so much, Karel, for organizing and leading this trip and for sharing your knowledge with us! I have to admit that I always find a walk like this rather frustrating. It doesn't work too well when you have people who are photographers and people who are interested in picking mushrooms to eat : ) The latter tend to always be ahead and by the time you catch up to them, you can't see what has already quickly been picked and of course it is usually difficult or impossible to get a photo. This was private land and some of us know the owner, Rod Handfield. In places like the national or provincial parks, one is not allowed to remove anything from the area - but some people still do. You see people with large baskets full of picked mushrooms for cooking! This is especially an east European 'thing'. They have grown up with this tradition and seem to know which fungi are edible or not. Some poisonous mushrooms can look very similar to edible ones, which is why the warning is to never, ever eat any kind of fungus unless you are an expert! As our local Naturalist always says: "All fungi are edible, some only once!" Sandy and I left the group around lunchtime, to go looking at vehicles at one of the dealerships. In the last year and a half, I have had to put far too much money into repairs for my poor old 17+ year old car and finally, I knew that I had no choice but to replace it. The muffler and catalytic converter died about a week ago and instead of spending a fortune on repair (estimate was $4,999), I decided I would rather put that money towards a new vehicle. I had been thinking about replacing it the last few years, but now, enough is enough! Update re: car. Yay, I finally did it! Three days ago, friend Sandy and I returned to the dealership just after lunchtime. I had to drive my old car there so that they could do an appraisal on it and tell me how much I would get for a trade-in. Before I went, I was feeling more confused and uncertain about which car I would decide on. The few that the dealership had were not a colour I would want to drive or else they didn't have the right things installed. I was so relieved when I was told that I could order one to my liking and that the waiting period would be 2-3 weeks. Longer than I would have liked, but bearable (though I know I will be climbing the walls by the time my new car arrives!). The very patient, non-pushy salesman said why not take my old car home and use it just very locally till then. So, thankfully, I still have a (very noisy!) vehicle with which to go and get groceries, which was my main concern. No birding or mushroom trips, though, which will not be easy to bear. Having said that, I need to add that I know I am very fortunate that I am in a position to be able to replace my vehicle - feel very grateful and lucky. Thank you, again, Sandy, for helping me through this highly stressful (to me) ordeal!! It made an enormous difference .... THE difference.

On 7 September 2015, I went for a walk at Shannon Terrace in Fish Creek Park. I never seem to go for walks on my own anymore, but I really need to do more walking for health reasons. After about four days of rain, I made myself go on this walk and saw more than I was expecting to see, including a few reasonably photogenic mushrooms. This one, growing on a fallen log in the forest, made me think of thick-cut bacon! Far too much "fat" on it for my liking. The only time I have bacon (back bacon) is at Christmas time, when I might make bacon rolls. Just as I was leaving the park, I noticed the dark clouds rolling in and I wasn't sure if some Mammatus clouds (sagging pouch-like structures) were forming. Most unlikely, but I wanted to be sure, so drove out towards the SW edge of the city. None to be seen, but it still felt good to see the very distant mountains. A word of warning: if you don't like potholes (and I mean a lot of potholes!), avoid driving along 146th St (that then becomes 69th, eventually getting on to 22X)!

My daughter and I saw this small, sunlit clump of moss growing on a log in the middle of the creek at Big Hill Springs Provincial Park. We were there for a short while on 25 May 2015, when my daughter and I spent the day driving a large area NW of Calgary - a round trip of 338 km. The perfect way to celebrate my birthday : ) Most of the roads were roads that I had driven before, but my daughter had never been to most of the area. I had never driven to Big Hill Springs Provincial Park, but had been several times on birding trips with friends a few years ago. I had really, really hoped to find a Great Gray Owl, as my daughter has never seen one in the wild. No luck yesterday, even though I knew a few areas NW of the city to check. In fact, we saw so few birds of any kind! I'm always thankful that we both enjoy taking photos of all sorts of things, including barns. Our little adventure started off in hopes of seeing a Red Fox family (out of luck), then driving the Grand Valley Rd and area. We stopped at Wynchell Lake, where my daughter spotted a Great Blue Heron and a very distant Kingfisher perched on a piece of driftwood. Also some kind of shorebird. She has great eyes for spotting things! From there, we travelled eastwards and eventually reached Big Hill Springs Provincial Park. I had been hoping that there might at least be some wildflowers in bloom, but Dandelions were all we saw all day! Plenty of green foliage everywhere, but no flowers. Since the day of this trip, Alberta is now under a province-wide fire ban thanks to the lack of rain. Everywhere is bone dry, which of course is affecting the growth of plants. After I had dropped my daughter off at home, I did get some rain on my drive home - there were even snowflakes mixed in with the rain! Another thing I saw on my drive home, while stopped at a traffic light, were four Jack Rabbits that had fun chasing each other round the base of a huge Spruce tree near the edge of the road and then they all ran across the road in single file between my car and the car in front. They were so, so cute : )