Working on a painting with mushrooms. A lot of mushrooms.

This is undoubtedly inspired by the weekend’s yard work, which involved pulling out the shrooms on the lawn so James could mow. We had half a wheelbarrow full, all of ’em inedible and many of them in various stages of decomposition.

I have a stomach like cast iron under most circumstances–nothing short of actual food poisoning lays me low–but I tell ya, pullin’ up half-rotted mushrooms for an hour had a definite impact. (And then of course I do a pretty painting of pretty mushrooms. Typical.)

One interesting thing–while looking up mushroom species for the painting, I found out that the pretty little things I always thought were puffballs were actually oak leaf galls. Which isn’t a fungus–it’s a tissue reaction to mites or parasitic wasps–and so is not includeable.

Here’s one of the few good photos I could find of the kind I remember:

http://www.fotonomy.com/Marvin/photo/aa461eba/

Hey, you learn something new every day…

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