Fungi Memories

I'm no fan of snow. When I was a kid I loved snow, deep white snow drifting over the garage next to our house high in the Adirondacks. Snow drifts so high that a kid could climb up them and over the peaked roof of the garage and slide down the other side on a cushion of snow 2 feet thick. The great thrill came in flying off the roof on the lee side into open air for a couple of feet before making a soft landing in an 8 foot drift so fluffy that the sheer force of landing might put me under the white stuff. Then I could lie there for a long minute looking through the blue light of made by a couple inches of snow before emerging into the sunshine.

I loved snow. Snow so wonderfully deep in the cornfield that we would make tunnels in it tall enough for 8 year olds to walk upright under the crusty frozen top layers, our own winter underground that seemed so far from the world of the grownups, yet was just outside my Aunt's kitchen window.

I loved snow. Snow glistening blue diamonds in the moonlight, soft hills of snow and a gloss of frost coating the trees which creaked and moaned as they seemed to voice their displeasure at a cruel fate which left them to shiver at 20 below.

I loved snow. Snow of a perfect density and moisture content to build a jolly white giant of a snowman standing on two legs in the front yard, with a slide made of ice between his legs for my children to go slipping and sliding down the hill.

I hate snow. Around here the snow is seldom deep enough to cover the leaves and sticks so they stick out looking somehow ragged and dirty in the white cover. On the rare occasions when the snow blankets everything in deep pure white all it means to me is that I'll have to shovel a quarter mile of driveway unless the temperature goes up drastically and fast.

It snowed today for the second time this week. The snow has a miserable thinness which makes the woods look bleak and forlorn. It was a good day to think of mushrooms. I could think of green leaves and flowers but that would leave me with a terrible yearning for summer, and it is way too early for that. I could think of the warm colors of autumn, but the pain of raking all those leaves has still not left my bones.

So I think of mushrooms. We have beautiful mushrooms and we have mushrooms that look like old boots, I've never seen such mushrooms. They remind me in their variety and changeability of the snow of my childhood. One day a mushroom is purple, the next it is pink then it is gone. Others spread like "The Blob" threatening to devour our car, our cats... us!

"The Blob" appeared one May day in 2003. At first I thought that perhaps someone had dropped an old boot in the yard, but it grew and grew, soon others appeared. I have no idea what "The Blob" really is. It came back in 2004 but there was no sign of it or its kin in 2005. Will it come again, will it eat the car?

As the pictures of mushrooms came in from the yard I began to see a world under my feet that in the previous years had been invisible to me. The cameraman's eye was revealing a universe as unknowable to me as the Adironack snow.



If the truth be told I like them better in pictures than in real life. They squish in a most unpleasant way when stepped on, and stepping on one is a common occurrence when walking through the yard.

Some look like flowers, some look like ears. I don't know the names of any of them, I've looked up as many as I could find, but their names don't stay with me.

Down there on the ground there are gorgeous green ruffles on thick stems that make me wonder when they appear why I would want to plant anything that might push them out of their habitat.

This might be a chrysanthemum.

These are as bright as any summer flower.

The black mushrooms are both exotic and ugly at the same time. My cameraman tells me that these "might" be a little rare, and are not edible, not that we are about to try.

I think of those that grow on the firewood as nuisances... who would want to burn this!

The pink ones don't last long, maybe something likes to eat them. As they get pinker they get more ragged, by the time they are dark purple most of the edges are gone.

Mushrooms can be dwarfed by a pinecone or they can be just plain weird looking. I don't know if this funny white thing was partially eaten or if this is how it really looks.

Supposedly Indian Pipes are not really mushrooms. I've heard this and should check it out. It doesn't matter, though, what they are; because for me Indian Pipes mean Spring. They marked the end of winter for sure. When I was a kid they meant that I could trade my ice skates for a swimming suit. Now they mean that I can trade my snow shovel for a rake. How sad it is to grow up.