Hickory Dickory Dock and the Mushroom Chronicles

Today Joey and I took Gypsy to the Prince William Forest Park for a nice long walk. We are so lucky to live within 10 minutes of a glorious National park filled with many trails and wildlife and magic. It's beautiful and I've hiked through about it several times. When I was a child my parents took me to marvel at wonders built by man. I will take my children to marvel at wonders crafted by nature.

We haven't had much rain this summer and all the rivers and streams are low. But since the air has cooled off many mushrooms have burst forth from the ground. We spotted nearly 14 different varieties the one trail we followed. I am poor at best when it comes to mushroom identification, except for Morels, Stinkhorns, and a few Amanitas. All of the mushrooms we saw were lovely and I plan on harvesting those I can properly identify next time.













I gathered a few Hickory nuts, some acorns, and happened upon these Cicada wings just resting on a small table guarded by the most peculiar caterpillar. We also found two fauns resting among the trees and they begged us to follow. Gypsy's nose wiggled and ears spun. They stood waist high and still had their spots and let us get strangely close before bounding off into the trees. We followed for a while before becoming tangled in spiderwebs and decided to stick to the trail.