Late, Late Summer Woods

This has been a summer of enormous dripping all-engulfing dampness.  The mushrooms have been thick on the ground in the woods.  But this evening we noticed that very few remain, and those that are still hanging on are blasted, gnawed on, broken, bruised.  The light has changed, the dampness has lifted, and toads have taken over from katydids at night.  On the right side of this page-- Jerusalem artichokes growing across from the orchard, with a large jumping spider just starting her nightly web.

Along the trail the remnants of a few mushrooms were hidden under the first leaf-fall.  Almost everything had been nibbled on.

At the far end of the trail before it turns toward the top of the mountain, yet another stand of dark and dry Indian pipes.  And on the right, a large brown mushroom broken in half so that the surprising white inside showed, like a chocolate candy with a coconut cream center.