What the..... fungus?

When I first saw it, I thought that perhaps the sunset was throwing a strange light on the tree stump in the backyard causing it to glow orange.... but then I realized that the glow was on the wrong side.

Here it is... and yes, I think it's a fungus. This was taken a week ago. Yesterday the fungus was brown and gray. When you touch it, the gray sends out puffs of spores, but the brown must not be "ripe" as it just sits there. I hit it with the watering can, and smokey plumes flew up as though you are extinguishing white coals on the grill. I even got Adrianna to come out and take a look... and then a week later check out the spore spewing action. Isn't nature cool?

Lately Adrianna does not want to be outside... and she does not want to be inside by herself. I try to get her to come outside in the garden with me... but 90% of the time she refuses... after all, there are **bugs** out there. A mud dauber got in the laundry room sending her into her room to hide. I have to admit, opening the laundry door and staring a large black waspy thing in the face almost caused me to fall over backwards... darn flip-flops... in my frantic escape attempt. :) I don't like bugs, but she takes it to an entirely new level. Sunday, we did manage a picnic on the lawn... as long and we were together outside... and as long as we left the house at the same time to take up post on the beach towels on the front lawn... she was okay.

The yard and garden still need a lot of work... and some mulch so that I can stop doing so much weeding. In the garden, two tomato plants are in and two are waiting for their chance. The peas are popping up, the beans are coming along nicely, and tiny little carrot sprouts have just appeared. We also planted some beets and zucchini this weekend. The ants had taken over a section of the garden and hopefully we've gotten rid of them for good. My brand new purple phlox is blooming in front. The white will be coming soon, but the pinky-purpley one - although it's the tallest - has yet to show signs of blooming. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll take turns throughout the summer. They are some of my absolute favorite plants in the garden... right up there with hostas. You can see a peek of one of my hostas here with my new copper birdie bath. I thought of getting a feeder too... but haven't found anything I really like yet. I also want some more gazing balls. The design house out at Lucketts had small and medium sized silver gazing balls tossed all over their flower beds. It was quite lovely and I'm not sure why I didn't take a photo of it. I'll have to head back over there some time and snap a pick. Unfortunately I didn't see them for sale there, and I've never seen such small gazing balls before.

I was going to share a new layout or two... but I only have one new one (I'm such a slacker!) and I accidentally saved the photo at work thinking that it was a bulletin board. I'll have to email it over and post it later.

much love,

erin