All for our love of freedom: Wild Things!!

One of my favorite things to do is go for walks in the woods and take pictures of the things I find in nature. This is quite a mish-mash of all kinds of the wild things that I have photographed along the way, bugs, lizards, mushrooms, flowers, and other things that have intrigued me.
I am also making this list in hopes that some day I will have them labeled, and will be able to use them as a reference. That being said, anything I do label, really may not be what I say it is, so please don't look at this page as factual, just my honest effort. I am very interested in wild edibles such as mushrooms and greens and such (not so much the bugs and lizards), so I will try to make notes of anything that I have actually tried eating and how that worked out for me... or not.

April 2015

April is a busy wild thing month... lots of things are springing into action!

This is a cup fungi called the Devil's Urn. It's all over in the woods and of course I took way too many pictures of it and loved every minute.

I'm also listing the Jack in the Pulpit as a wild thing just because they are so quick to grow and just as quick to wilt away and die. I have not found any on our property, but our sweet and wonderful neighbor lets me walk through her woods and that is where I found this cluster. He is so beautiful and elegant, good ol' Jack. Not the easiest to get a good pic of either.

Hickory buds are quite amazing and complex. I think it is my favorite tree to watch bloom so far.

Love love love this stage of growth!

I clearly missed some growth between these two pics, but it wasn't very exciting anyhow.

March 2015

I was checking out our wet weather creak and noticed this strange worm and googled it to find out that it is a horse hair worm. It is called lots of other things and of course has an official name too Nematomorpha. It is a parasitic worm, but it is not dangerous to humans or dogs, it is a parasite to insects like crickets or beetles. It's life cycle is very interesting... I read all about it... google it! :)

October 2014
Have you ever heard of a frost flower? Well I had not either, until one of my wonderful neighbors was telling me about them and I realized that I had taken a picture of some, thinking it was some crazy thing that wouldn't have an actual name. But it does... its a frost flower.

The ground has to be unfrozen and there has to be a hard frost
and moisture in the plants root system.

Then the plant sends sap up the plant that has been hit with the freeze, and oozes out sap from the plant continually, forming it into a beautiful thin ribbon. Google it, its cool.

My pics are not even close to being as awesome as some frost flowers,
but I'm happy to know what they are
and hope to see some some epic frost flowers in my future years.

So I thought this could be a purple turkey tail, because I had read that there were blue turkey tails. It's not, it is a Violet Toothed Polypore... good to know, do not make tea out of these.

Can you see the mushroom that is growing in the opening of this log? Sooo cute!

This amazingness was found while it had been raining for days and was still drizzling on and off.

Its got to be some sort of jelly fungi but I couldn't find any info on it.

So, these are turkey tails... pretty sure at least.

My first purple mushroom!!!!! I have found about 30 more of these and I think they are the edible Blewit mushroom, and I have taken spore prints and still think they are edible, but I really want to talk to someone in person about them before I cook them up.

For now, I am soooo happy just to look at them!

This was a velvety shelf mushroom that was sporadically growing throughout the woods.

Witches Butter. It is edible, and I did not try it, it just does not look appetizing to me. I think they are both ok to eat, but I would research WAY more if I wanted to try.

I have no idea what any of these silly little things are, but they are all fast movers!

This snail was just fun to photograph.

September 2014

This is from some kind of bug right? It was on the underside of a lot of leaves.

So I did my research and found out that these are called Indian Pipe plants. They do not produce any chlorophyll which is why they are white and practically see through. Really hard to get a good picture of them and apparently they die really quickly too.

This is the delicious edible maitake mushroom that I found foraging with Nancy and Greg. Glenn liked it too!

Coral Fungi... there was a huge sea of these, amazing!

And and itty-bitty blue bug I found in my garden.

Cicada July 2014:

I had never found one that just came out of its shell, how did it fit in there?

June 2014

Some crazy looking cocoon that was on the outside of the lookout.

I think it might be an alien.

The part that is yellow, really looked like it was glowing, and it had this

awesome purple trim on all the edges...that's wild!

June 2014

This was growing on an old cedar stump. What a happy bright yellow heart! I looked it up and I am not joking when I tell you it is seriously called "Dog Vomit Fungus" Haaahhh!