Fungus Among Us.

Sorry for the no-show on Thursday. Between prepping for our now annual Spring Break Yard Sale and working on things around the house and being in denial about how much time was left before the menfolk went back to school, I was pooped and didn't really have much I was ready to show you.

But the yard sale went about the same as last year -- some stuff sold, some didn't. We donated about half of what was left and plan on trying to sell the rest at my mom's community garage sale or through Craigslist or whatever.

A couple of days prior, though, I'd been working on keeping my flower beds pretty, seeing what was living and what wasn't going to make it (about half of my hollyhock looks down for the count, as does most of my irises which boo sad) when I noticed something weird in with the mulch.

Now, here's a tidbit about me: certain natural textures give me the heeby-jeebies like nobody's business. Like coral, and natural sponges, large quantities of cork, microscopic cross-sections of cellular structure, things like that. It just freaks me out and makes me all jumpy and queasy and I go into panic mode. I know I'm not alone in this weird quasi-phobia, but it's a point of reference for the rest of this post.

Anyway, so I'm digging around, looking at plants and things, when I spot something shaped all weird and sea-plant like kind of tucked in next to one of my pansies. At first, I think it's a half-decayed leaf from a nearby tree, so I go to pick it out and throw it into the breeze when I realize that perhaps I should look at it carefully before touching it.

Well, I'll just let you look at the photo I took once I dug it up:

GROSSGROSSGROSS I actually have to scroll up stupid far so I can't see it while I write this out.

I only took a picture of it so I could immediately text it to my brother with his turf grass and plant life knowledge and scream via all caps WTF IS THIS THING GET RID OF IT OMG I'M GOING TO PUKE and his kind and gentle response was ...

There's a fungus among us.

Which, I mean, I knew that, I could guess that since it looked like a deformed zombified mushroom (which don't bother me unless I look under the little umbrella part and then whoo boy, no thanks) and I guess the weather had been kind of damp and rainy without letting anything really dry out but SERIOUSLY, WHY WHY WHY?

He looked it up and told me stuff like that it's a spore-producing fungus (hence why it multiplies throughout the beds kind of at random) and is probably harmless and a fungicide from the Depot should straighten things right out, but that other than being ugly it's not a big deal. Except, you know, when you have a things-found-in-nature-phobia.

So now I'm checking my flower beds every couple of days with this mix of dread, apprehension, nausea, and adrenaline and digging more of these godforsaken bastards up and throwing them in a plastic bag and into the trash so them and their spores can go fester in some landfill somewhere and keep the F of of my lawn. 

At least our trash bags are biodegradable.