Nature-y stuff

Going for "one last" walk on the trail at Pinckneyville was wonderful and heartbreaking because really, truly we won't have this in Doha. We will have many interesting things, I'm sure. But we won't have this and I have such a soft spot for moss and ferns and all things moist and verdant.... 

These are evidently Cantharellus cinnabarinus (or red chanterelle). We found some other fungi as well, like this Trichaptum biforme:

And this Phaeolus tabulaeformis, which was really quite large (that's a pinecone sitting inside the big bowl part):

Today was a lovely, refreshingly cool day. A surprise thunderstorm rolled in last night and cooled everything down considerably and then today remained overcast and somewhat cooler than normal (high 80s), so it was a lovely day to go to the park. That storm last night was really quite something!

The forecast said we had like a 20% chance of light showers and then *ka-pow!* this storm hit quite ferociously right around midnight.

I had just gone into the kitchen to get something and was looking out our kitchen windows over the back deck when a tree branch broke off the trees above us and flew right into the window beside me. I just about had a heart attack!

Around that same time Phoebe came upstairs crying because of the storm. 

We told her about the stick/branch and she laughed and laughed about that. 

"Maybe the stick just wanted to play with you!" she suggested. 

"Probably," I said. "What do you think it wanted to play?"

"I don't know," she said. 

"What about...fetch?" I asked. 

And she laughed and laughed about that, too. And then went back to bed...only to come up again and again. It was a long night. But the day was cool, so at least we had that going for us.

We can tell that autumn is approaching because we are seeing more and more joro spiders (though they're still pretty small) and the oak worms are coming out. 

Phoebe found one while we were walking around the pond.

And while we're on the topic of kids holding things, here are some random pictures of Benjamin holding things from the last little while...a toad and a bee:

*****

I went out on the deck this evening to finally put our tent away...but parts of it were still wet (because I had left the tent out last night to finish drying, figuring that the "light rain" was going to be light instead of a ferocious thunderstorm) so really I just moved things around, hoping they'll be dry tomorrow.

And when I was coming inside I noticed this...stick...impaled into the brick by our door:

My first thought was, "Wow! Did that branch that flew into the window hit the brick so hard that it impaled the brick?"

But then I thought it would probably have broken the window as well if it was moving with that much force, but all it did was thud against it and fall onto the deck.

So then I thought, "Which kid found a small hole in the brick and wedged a stick inside?"

But upon even closer inspection I realized that it wasn't a stick at all!

It was a bug! A morning-glory prominent, to be precise! I am not sure why it's called that because apparently they don't eat morning glory, but it has a few other nicknames (like false unicorn caterpillar...moth and checkered-fringe prominent). Whatever its name, it gets an A+ in camouflage because I 100% thought it was a broken twig, not a bug, and were I in the habit of going around eating moths...I would have completely overlooked this tasty little morsel.

(Disclaimer: I don't know if this moth tastes good, so eat at your own risk. But for real though—I don't highly recommend going around eating moths or caterpillars willy-nilly. Or mushrooms, for that matter. You've really got to know your stuff before you munch on it.) 

Here's the morning-glory prominent that will live to see another day: