This Is What Happens When The Sun Doesn't Shine

It has been over a week since we have seen the sun shine.  Gentle showers come and go.  They've been the peaceful sound that lulls me to sleep each night.  Without the sun's presence, though, the air is as humid as a rain forest!

I've been patiently waiting for the loofah gourds to begin to dry.   With these conditions, however, that may not happen.   Instead of drying, they just keep growing bigger and bigger!

Across the trellis from them, I had planted seeds that were to be butternut squash.  However, what is growing here is something altogether different, I think. 

 They resemble a winter squash called the Cushaw green-striped, squash, however they seem much too small to be that.  Do any of my fellow gardeners have a clue what this is?

I am hoping these gourds dry before the weight of them brings down the trellis!

Everywhere we look there are mushrooms popping up... not just the usual ones, but all sorts of new ones in so many sizes, shapes and colors.  Their emergence is not limited to the woods.   I found this one yesterday on the door to the henhouse!

We also find them popping up in our yard.  The blewit mushroom, below, appeared near Maven Haven - a new species I hadn't seen before...

We found a few more of them in the woods.  

Their underside is a light purple color...

I am slightly worried that if it doesn't soon dry up a bit, I may find mushrooms growing on myself!!

Here are some of the most recent finds in the woods...

coral mushroom

White cheese polypore...

A couple small mushrooms growing on the end of a decaying log.  Look closely at the lower right hand corner of the photo below.  You will notice a few tiny, beige growths...

Here is a photo of them, magnified...

In addition to mushrooms, there are also a lot of slime molds in the forest.  Slime molds were originally categorized as fungi, as they share similar characteristics.  They grow under very moist conditions.

Magnified...

Slime molds are currently classified in the Protist Kingdom (along with algae and protozoa).  Amazingly, they have the ability to move at about a millimeter per hour.  Even more incredible is the fact that slime molds are made of a single cell with multiple nuclei. If you have ever noticed a large blob of what looks like yellow vomit in your mulch, you have seen a slime mold.  Below is a tiny white slime mold...

Magnified, it looks like this...

You might notice a few tiny white dots close to it.  Magnified even further, they look like this...

Pink wolf's milk slime mold...

You've got to admit... this world is full of fascinating life-forms.  Each organism has a function - each is but a tiny piece of the puzzle that we call "life".  

One of my rainy day projects was this whimsical, linen dish towel, celebrating my fungi fascination.

I had seen a somewhat similar one in an online catalog, and remembering that I had some scraps of linen in my sewing stash... I decided to make my own appliquéd and embroidered version.

Happy October, friends.  It's pumpkin month!  We'll be harvesting all of the pumpkins from our compost pile this weekend - stay tuned!  (I am hoping that the wet conditions haven't made them rot!)