Midwinter Mushroom Hunt

Lis got me Missouri's Wild Mushrooms for one of my Christmas gifts.

The day turned out to be one of the welcome mild ones we sometimes get on Christmas, with a temperature of  50. We set out to identify a mushroom on a stump that looked interesting when it first appeared weeks ago, after a rain.

This one would have been edible had I plucked it when it first showed up. We tentatively identified it as an Oyster Mushroom. Best of all, nothing poisonous looks like it in Missouri. New ones were forming at the bottom of the Tulip Poplar stump. It's in a convenient location between the house and the chicken coop, where I can keep an eye on it.

There were three different fungi on that stump.

We had already had feasts and candy and presents with the kids, so a long walk in the woods was most welcome. Our family is one of the odd ones who never go to the movies on Christmas. Long walks are much more to our liking.

These little ones were growing inside a hollow stump. 

We found lots of these on really dead trees in the woods. False Turkey Tails on the left, I think.

Reading the book made me glad I hadn't tried some red mushrooms that appear every in fall under the oak tree. I found their picture under Emetic Russula, with a little skull and crossbones alongside the name.

Best of all, the book greatly extended my mushroom-hunting season. Another outdoor hobby, what fun.

Lissa enjoyed finding mushrooms in winter, too. She dragged back a long sycamore limb for the fire. Another fun mother-daughter outing. I know, we really must learn to get in step with the populace and go to the movies on Christmas.

More Little Brown Bats

When Fall came, at first there was one Little Brown Bat clinging to the fruit cellar cement wall. It made me wonder where the other one had gone. I imagined it was the female of the pair, who refused to spend one more winter in such a cold cave. "I'm heading south, thank you very much. That woman who owns the cellar keeps opening the door and letting all the cold air in, and wakes me up when she gets wood out. Remember how I wound up in her bedroom the night of the blizzard?" Neither of us were likely to forget that. (See Bats as House Pets.)

Who could blame her? So it was with a bit of a jolt that the next time I went down there, to fetch my first sauerkraut crock, I found four bats.

One of them decided to hang from the ceiling. I took this pic yesterday when getting the last dry firewood, since I had to disturb them anyway. So that's going to be it for me using my own fruit cellar. I am leaving the door open a few inches for them to fly out on mild days, maybe to get a drink from the river before it freezes. I covered the air pipe with an old crock pot I found. The outer door, up the stairs on the outside, never will close all the way.

Whenever there has been a tornado possibility,  I've taken shelter in the cellar . The inner door is an old one with an oval glass. Glass would not be my choice for a storm cellar door, but there it is. Hopefully, a tornado would suck it out, away from me.

While trying very hard not to bother the bats, I do find them fascinating . I wonder if my little cellar will turn out to be a gathering place for rather a colony.  It appears there are even more than four of them. The guano would be useful for the garden, at any rate.

As long as I don't accidentally carry any in into the house, I'm fine with them. They are so furry and cute.

I must admit, however, that watching critters hibernate isn't terribly exciting.