Mushrooms!

Yesterday was a banner day for finding moral mushrooms.  Take a look at this…

It must have been a perfect day because just about every place we looked, we found one or two.  Secret location #1 was definitely the best, though.  The weather is not cooperating right now (snow!) but, hopefully, when it warms up again we will get another batch.  Not one stock of asparagus has peeped above its lovely straw blanket—a good thing if we get the freezing temperatures in the forecast.  Maybe we’ll get more and bigger mushrooms later when the ground warms enough for the asparagus to start it’s spring growing cycle.  We’ve actually never figured out exactly when or what conditions creates mushrooms.  Just when we think we have it figured out, they surprise us.

Here are two very unusual mushrooms.  So far I’ve not had much luck identifying them.  Any help is appreciated.

 

The two pictures below are two different mushrooms, but I think they are the same species.

Weston Missouri Laurel Hill Cemetery Stroll

Click here for the rest of the pictures and descriptions of the “ghosts” who came out to talk to us.   The three young girls above all died at 10 or 11 years old.

Thanks to Christi, Sue, Dan and I have had this date on our calendar for a long time.    Christi and Tom learned about it when they stayed in a Weston bed and breakfast several years ago.  The tour is held every other year so we were looking forward to the event.  The Weston Community Theatre produces the four hour walk about with actors and traveling musicians.  Barely visible is a dark clothed lady softly singing down in the valley in the picture above.  It was interesting to hear the stories of loving devotion, marital affairs and murder. It was all very well done and a lot of fun.

The Laurel Hill Cemetery is unique in that there are slaves, Union soldiers and Confederate soldiers all buried within its fences.  The valley in the picture above is said to have 50 slaves buried.  Later records indicate that over 400 African-Americans are buried in the area.  Most of the markers are gone.

After the cemetery tour we ate at O’Malley’s and then listened to some good ole Irish music.  We enjoyed the same fun as last year at St. Patrick's Day