Fungus Among Us

I saw these big old fungi when mowing the other day. Probably can't see it in the photo but something has nibbled a bit on the one in the foreground. Do animals instinctively know which mushrooms are safe to eat or do they just avoid them completely? There's been plenty of mushrooms of various types around here of late.

The farmer was here yesterday to finish chopping the stalks now that things have dried out. He said we got nine inches of rain in October - that would explain the abundance of mushrooms, toadstools, etc. You can see in the photo where the tractor was spinning the wheels a bit. The soil is pretty sandy here and dries out pretty quickly after a rain. He also told me the solar farm I rode by on the 50 miler a few weeks ago was going to take up 5,000 acres. That's a lot of good farm ground to take out of service. There's another big one going to be going in east of me as well. I asked him if he had any idea of why Bill Gates was buying up all that farmland out west. He didn't have a definitive answer but he suspected some kind of non-agricultural use. Between the solar farms and the subdivisions, there's not going to be much cropland available for feeding all of us before too much longer. 

Beautiful day again yesterday. A bit chillier than normal for this time of year but a nice day as you can tell from the clouds in the above photo. I did a little walk, followed by a couple of rounds on the double end bag in the morning. Ran some errands, did a little yard work and did a thorough cleaning on the inside of the truck in the afternoon. I was supposed to take the Missus to the dentist to get a tooth pulled today but the dentist office called and there's no water on their side of the street. I've got a couple more things to take care of outside before winter but I should have those done today or tomorrow, maybe take the truck through the car wash - might as well get the outside looking good as long as the inside's clean.  

  

I received a call from a lady I know from the gym. She's got a crane that needs some work. I'm not sure I'm the guy for the job but I agreed to take a look at it. It's getting cold and I'm not a fan of working outside in the cold, or inside in the cold, or working at all for others anymore when you come right down to it. I'll see what's going on but I don't really want to get sidetracked on my stuff.