Weird/Cool how the insects blend in so well with the conifers.

Your a fun (gi) guy Ken.

ha ha...harv! Good one.

The mushroomy type things look really cool. Almost looks like seashells. Cool.

I'm PETRIFIED of spiders so very gross.

The dragonfly is beautiful. It does really blend in to the needles of that conifer. That is really neat.

I was a little scared to look at this thread. LOL

Hey Ken. I like the same photos you do. The mushroom and dragonfly is cool looking but the spider is just too ugly. :)
Cher

Those sure appear to be oyster mushrooms, Pleurotis ostreatus, or a near relative. Good eating Ken, if you're at all inclined to harvest your own fungal food next year.

As for the garden spider, I get them in my flower beds at work every year, late in summer. They do startle you as they're so big and black and yellow and all. But a good friend to the gardener all the same.

+oM

Perhaps these are just random friends...

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Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio glaucas.

Stood out like a sore thumb on one of my conifers.

Taken this summer

Dave

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These guys wonder our yard almost daily...

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Its like Thanksgiving everyday at the Sample's household!

Love the fungi. They have such a beautiful form and flow and what a great ivory color.

Here's an Actias luna I was lucky to spot while I was mowing my lawn. Quite stunning.
It was easily 4 inches wide and had a fat fuzzy body. Blurred out in the background is
my favorite tree Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Ogon'.

As for the orb weaver spiders, my wife loves them. She catches grass hoppers to put in
their webs and boy do they get fat. I never thought that spiders could get fat lol.

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What????? No Pond.

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Great Blue Heron
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Dax

Here's my local spider. I took this in September.

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So I'm reading this on the couch and glance up from the laptop screen to see a new bird on the feeder. They're always around, just never caught it perched on the feeder.
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and some slime mold from June
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wierd!

That hawk must be your best friend! They keep the vole and rabbit population down around here.

Did you let that slime mold do its thing? Curious what you did with or what happened to the foilage of that Arb.

I've never seen it on my actual plants before.

Stinkhorns have got to be the strangest things by far. They are so nasty they don't even warrant a picture.

About the mushrooms, be careful! A man in my office was very knowledgeable about mushrooms. During a wet season he had a lot of mushrooms in his yard. He was sure they were edible. He ate some and lived another 5 days.
Bernd

Those mushrooms are pretty cool, Ken. I'll have to add some logs to the landscape. I've got some longer length unsplit stuff that I didn't get to in the fall.

The slime mold doubled in size and bloomed, not sure if the arb was sensitive to it or not. I was more enticed by the mold than worried about damage to the arb, though I don't think it was too bad. A slime mold plague would be a different story!

Stinkhorns are definately odd, I had a bunch this year around a maple.
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I ate a False Morel mushroom last summer and suffered all the symptoms mentioned on the Internet except death. It was close. Heck, I didn't even know there was a False Morel.
Yeah, be REAL careful!
Mike

My veggie garden scarecrow is in there now for the winter.
That's me, not the scarecrow.
Mike

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Fantastic picture of the hawk Dave, if it was seen here it would make the news. Does it take food from the feeder = opportunist?

Mike, how many beers later did you end up with a phone booth in yer yard?

Dax

LOL Dax. A friend got it for me from Fishermen's Terminal in Seattle. It used to be out on a dock. They name the docks there. It came from the dock called Holiday.
I just can't figure out where to put it in an appropriate spot in the garden so it looks like it 'belongs'.
Mike

Mike,

Have a few more beers and you will find a place.

As long as you have this booth you should run a line to it, set up a recliner, TV, refrigerator and laptop and enjoy life.

Will the booth accommodate two?

LOL

Dave

Mike, did you ever figure out why you weren't getting a dial tone?

Absolutely a fanstastic pic. Sure it will fit in somwhere... perhaps there is an area with more whimsical plants?

LOL...Mike, soon no one will know what a phone booth is. I think it is a neat idea.

LOL...Mike, soon no one will know what a phone booth is. I think it is a neat idea.

LOL...Mike, soon no one will know what a phone booth is. I think it is a neat idea.

Of course caution should always be observed when contemplating eating any wild fungi. But those in Ken's initial batch of photos are indeed oysters and they are indeed edible and choice.

+oM

There were four of these things that hung around for a couple of weeks.

Twins

Ingerdot, I think those are fledgling screech owls, how cool!

And how funny to see this thread resurrected after having been started and ended in the January winter. The Desperate Time for a gardener, eh?