It sometimes seems as if there is no middle ground in the precipitation department.  While some areas of the country are still undergoing a drought of severe proportions, with crop failures, a pending rampant fire season, and localized water shortages, other regions (Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, for instance) find residents with flooded homes, rivers 20′ or more over flood stage, and farmers with ruined crops.

Fortunately, we have fared pretty well weather-wise in this part of the Ozarks.  You may recall my post lamenting the lack of enough rain to keep the ponds completely full.  You may also recall, however, my post regarding this season’s hay crop, which ended with a photograph of the ominous skies that appeared over our hayfields at precisely the time that the grass should have been cut, dried and baled.  Since that time, we have not had three successive dry days in a row, which is about the dry period that is needed to process the grass into bales of hay.   The result is that our hayfields have still not been cut.  It remains to be seen whether or not the grasses will be sufficiently nutritious and appropriate for baling when the next dry spell occurs, whenever that may be.

On another front, the lack of dryness has caused the lawn around the house to grow much higher than I normally like to keep it.  Even when there has been no outright rain, the fog, and the dew that accompanies it, has prevented the lawn from drying enough for me to play lawn-mower man.

Because the weather conditions are just perfectly fine for fungi, the giant, unidentified mushrooms (which you may recall from this post) have returned in force to my perpetually damp lawn.

Again, in case you missed the last post about the mushrooms, here is a picture to help depict a sense of scale of these mushrooms.

When they first emerge, the mushroom cap looks like the one in the photograph above, which takes on a sort of helmet shape.

Soon, however, the mushroom cap breaks free of the ring at its base, and flares out into this convex configuration that you can see in this picture.

After attaining a convex shape for a short period of time, the cap then starts to flatten out, and even begins to curl up around the outer edges, which can be seen in the photograph above.

In my last encounter with these mushrooms, I contemplated making a meal out of them, but Duane, for my own safety,  convinced me not to, even though Ed reassured me that Cholula Sauce goes well with anything!  But now I am re-assessing the situation.  Maybe I was a little too tentative last time.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have chickened out, and just doused the mushrooms with Cholula Sauce and proceeded to eat them.

On the other hand,  perhaps they would taste better basted with Stubb’s Mopping Sauce and grilled until golden brown. 

I’ll let you know how they turn out.  Or maybe I won’t!

It sometimes seems as if there is no middle ground in the precipitation department.  While some areas of the country are still undergoing a drought of severe proportions, with crop failures, a pending rampant fire season, and localized water shortages, other regions (Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, for instance) find residents with flooded homes, rivers 20′ or more over flood stage, and farmers with ruined crops.

Fortunately, we have fared pretty well weather-wise in this part of the Ozarks.  You may recall my post lamenting the lack of enough rain to keep the ponds completely full.  You may also recall, however, my post regarding this season’s hay crop, which ended with a photograph of the ominous skies that appeared over our hayfields at precisely the time that the grass should have been cut, dried and baled.  Since that time, we have not had three successive dry days in a row, which is about the dry period that is needed to process the grass into bales of hay.   The result is that our hayfields have still not been cut.  It remains to be seen whether or not the grasses will be sufficiently nutritious and appropriate for baling when the next dry spell occurs, whenever that may be.

On another front, the lack of dryness has caused the lawn around the house to grow much higher than I normally like to keep it.  Even when there has been no outright rain, the fog, and the dew that accompanies it, has prevented the lawn from drying enough for me to play lawn-mower man.

Because the weather conditions are just perfectly fine for fungi, the giant, unidentified mushrooms (which you may recall from this post) have returned in force to my perpetually damp lawn.

Again, in case you missed the last post about the mushrooms, here is a picture to help depict a sense of scale of these mushrooms.

When they first emerge, the mushroom cap looks like the one in the photograph above, which takes on a sort of helmet shape.

Soon, however, the mushroom cap breaks free of the ring at its base, and flares out into this convex configuration that you can see in this picture.

After attaining a convex shape for a short period of time, the cap then starts to flatten out, and even begins to curl up around the outer edges, which can be seen in the photograph above.

In my last encounter with these mushrooms, I contemplated making a meal out of them, but Duane, for my own safety,  convinced me not to, even though Ed reassured me that Cholula Sauce goes well with anything!  But now I am re-assessing the situation.  Maybe I was a little too tentative last time.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have chickened out, and just doused the mushrooms with Cholula Sauce and proceeded to eat them.

On the other hand,  perhaps they would taste better basted with Stubb’s Mopping Sauce and grilled until golden brown. 

I’ll let you know how they turn out.  Or maybe I won’t!