Nature Mysteries
Last weekend, I was wandering around the back yard trying to clear my head of primer fumes before tackling the next project when I saw a dragonfly on a stump. For a second, I wished I had my camera on me, but I thought that dragonflies always fly away before you can get a shot anyway. But this dragonfly stayed in the same spot for several minutes while I watched it. Finally, I walked back into the house and grabbed my camera. It was still there when I came back, and it didn’t even twitch when I took several close-up pictures of it. I started to think that maybe it was dead, but can they hold on to a vertical surface after they die? And then I wondered if maybe they molt, and what I was seeing was a molted shell. It stayed in precisely the same spot for around four hours, and I was convinced that it must not be alive. But then I went out there later in the afternoon and it was gone, with no sign of it on the ground near the stump. Did something eat it? Did it fly away after all?
Also in the backyard is a spot where there used to be a stump sitting in the grass, so the grass is mostly dead. Around that circle of grass there have been several mushrooms growing, all the same type. Does anyone know what they are? I don’t have any good mushroom ID books.
April 21st, 2007 at 10:08 pm
You take amazing photographs! What beautiful bugs. I wish I knew mushrooms… but the Kamana Program scared the hell out of me with stories of Mushroom Experts accidentally killing their whole families… Ah!
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:52 am
Thanks Scout! I hear ya about the Kamana take on mushrooms. I actually don’t like mushrooms enough to make it worth the risk of eating them, even if i know for sure what they are. But I think they’re really cool life forms, and I wish I knew more about them. I think these in my backyard are morels. I wouldn’t eat them even if I knew for sure, but it’d be cool to know that’s what they are.
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Ooohhh….I think they are morels. If you cut one lengthwise in half and it is all hollow, it is a morel. They are very very good to eat - they don’t taste like mushrooms, they taste like sirloin steak. If you saute them in butter or some good tasting oil, you can make a really tasty sandwich out of them! Esp fried up with onions. Lucky, lucky you!!
April 24th, 2007 at 7:25 am
But Mom aren’t you worried about DeAnna accidentally killing herself if you are wrong?
April 26th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I’m pretty sure that they are morels, after doing a little research. I still have no desire to eat them…I don’t really care for sirloin steak that much either. but they’re pretty cool.