Fall Fungus

The warm/wet weather this fall has been beneficial to fungal growth. It only took a couple of days for this Dryad's Saddle (Polyporus squamosus) mushroom to develop on a Box Elder tree along our driveway.

Young Dryad's Saddle mushrooms are considered edible, but this one is over a foot wide and doesn't look as tasty as the Chanterelle mushrooms we found and froze this summer.

Halloween Friends

As people prepare to celebrate Halloween by decorating with images that are centered around fear and phobias, one common image is spiders. Here are some of my Wolf Spider (Hogna carolinensis) friends that live at our barn.

I have a couple of Wolf Spiders that hang out inside a water hose at the sink in the barn. I am reminded of the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" nursery rhyme whenever I open the water valve and spiders come running out.

I have a Wolf Spider that lives next to the door at the barn. This spider reminds me of a "Wal-Mart greeter" that always says hello when you enter.

Wolf Spiders are members of the family Lycosidae and can be identified by the orientation of their 8 eyes. A row of 4 small eyes above the mouth, then 2 larger eyes in the second row and the last 2 eyes in the third row on top of the forehead.

Wolf Spiders don't build webs and are primarily nocturnal hunters with keen night vision, much like wolves, which is where they get their name. Wolf Spiders prey upon small insects and have no interest in humans. They will not seek out interactions or attack you unless directly handled. Wolf spiders will bite if mishandled or trapped next to the skin. A Wolf Spider's bite is like that of a bee sting and will generally subside within 24 hours.

Pepper Plants

With no frost so far this fall, the pepper plants in our garden have continued to produce and we had stuffed peppers for supper yesterday. I brought this pepper plant into the solarium for a few more fresh peppers this fall/winter.

Not all of our peppers were big producers. I was able to start one Eastern Rocket pepper plant from some old seed. The Eastern Rocket is a very mild hot pepper and this plant only produced produced one pepper in the garden. The seeds from this pepper were harvested for another try next year.

I also moved the Eastern Rocket pepper plant into the solarium and it immediately took off producing new leaves and flowers.

Sweet Potatoes

October has been warm and wet this year and while the sweet potatoes in our garden were still growing it's time to dig. The excessive rain this year caused a lot of the sweet potatoes to grow long/narrow but a few of them looked like small footballs. I dug up 3 five gallon buckets of sweet potatoes which will cure in the solarium for a couple of weeks to allow the skins to firm up and to let starches convert to sugar.

Wheel Bug

Insects keep waiting at my door to be photographed. Today's bug caught my attention by the ridge protruding from its back. After some Internet research I identified it as a Wheel Bug (Arilus cristatus), they are named for the spiny ridge or "wheel" on the thorax.

Wheel Bugs are one of the largest true bugs reaching a length of up to 1.5 inches and a species of large assassin bug.

Visible in this photo is the wheel bug's reddish beak, located beneath its head. Wheel bugs capture their prey with their front legs and then plunges its beak into its victim before injecting it with enzymes, paralyzing it and dissolving its insides.

Katydid

I found this Katydid waiting for me at the door to our barn.

The name katydid is derived from the male’s repetitive chirp, which sounds like “katydid, katy-didn’t.”

They are primarily nocturnal and rest during the day in trees camouflaged to look like leaves.

Praying Mantis

Grandson Reed was visiting us for the weekend and made friends with a Praying Mantis.

Reed enjoyed playing with the mantis and wanted to take it home as a pet ...

Before heading home Reed agreed to release the mantis in our lawn.

Fall Mushrooms

I found these mushrooms today while walking in the woods.

YELLOW-ORANGE FLY AGARIC (Amanita muscaria var. guessowii) - The name of this mushroom is supposedly derived from its ability to act as a fly killer. If the mushroom is crushed and placed in milk, it will attract flies and kill them. This mushroom is not “poisonous” per se, rather it is a hallucinogen/narcotic and will cause people to become intoxicated, or get sick and vomit.

Common Puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum) is edible when young and is referred to as "poor man's sweetbread" due to their texture and flavor.