From the Inventor of Duck, Duck, Goose . . .

  . . . comes turtle, duck, turtle.

Strange, Convoluted Fungus

I came across this strange, convoluted fungus a few weeks ago.  Fortunately it was far enough off the trail to have avoided being destroyed.  

I don’t have much to say about this fungus.  I don’t know what kind it is.  It is not, however, the strangest fungus that I’ve seen.  That was one that I saw in North Carolina many years ago that looked kind of like a starfish.  If I ever get the time I should see if I can dig up those pictures.  (But I won’t get the time.)

 

Eighties Icons Fall

Last week saw the deaths of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Ozzy Osbourne, and Hulk Hogan.  I was not particularly a fan of any of those people, but I can’t deny the huge presence that they had in popular culture for all of us who grew up in the Eighties.  

I couldn’t help thinking that the next blow to my Eighties childhood would be that Chuck E. Cheese himself would die. 

And maybe I was a little bit prescient.

Chuck E. Cheese didn’t die. 

But he was arrested for credit card fraud.

A Baby Red-eared Slider Among Algae

 

The Birds of Early Spring

  From March . . . 

. . . we have an American Coot, which looks kind of sinister up close . . . 

. . . an American Robin on the rocks . . . 

. . . and, after the American Coot and the America Robin, one might be expecting an American Crow, but this is actually a Fish Crow, as indicated by its distinctive “ah-ah” call. 

Debris in the Water

 

The Carrot/Prehistoric Invertebrate

 

I have long thought that whoever came up with those bags of peeled, cut baby carrots was a genius—he basically turned carrots into potato chips.

Most of the carrots look pretty much the same, but recently I found one that looks like something from the Burgess Shale.  (That’s probably because of the weird strands at one end that resemble antennae, or mouthparts, or something.)