Fungus Among Us


The Addiverse gives a big shout out and a hearty congratulations to Chick-a-hello and her best friend Scooter.  Those gayla apples are mighty fine this time of year.

My original blog, which was written over the weekend, never got published because I had second thoughts about it.  Suffice it to say that is was mostly me whining about my continuing medical saga.  I thought the post was pretty funny (I always manage to entertain myself), then I realized I was just giving "power" to the issue by whining/writing/giving attention to the issues. It's hard for me not to whine.  I can whine with the best (or worst) of them.  Here's what I'll tell you: I'm jumping back into the medical world loop.  Once you are in the medical loop, you have to go along for the ride.  Seat belt is fastened, hands will remain in the car at all times.  Here I go!

Since my original blog is no longer relevant, I decided that I would blog about the mystery blobs in our lawn.  We've got these "things" for a lack of better word/term/description bubbling up from below--kind of like some kind of underground mushroom is trying to push through the turf.  They're pretty big, as far as I'm concerned--they've got to measure six inches wide.  They're black and look dirty but not like dirt.  We noticed them late fall and during the winter--they're multiplying and we now have like ten of these things. I went out and tried to take a photo of them, but the sun was already setting, so it's not the best visual:

All but this one of the mystery piles do NOT have a hole in the middle; this is the only one that does, so that's why I took the picture of it.  Most of the piles look like dog poop that's been sitting out in the rain--you know, if you have a big dog and it poops and you don't pick it up and it rains, you go back out in the yard and there's this pile of something that no longer resembles poop? That's what we're talking about here. If you have any idea what this might be, we are all ears.

In order to get an expert opinion, the wife called our lawn man.  I took him out to the piles (after all, the wife was already in her pajamas--I couldn't make her go out on the front lawn) and pointed to the problem.

Lawn man: "Wow! Those are crayfish.  In my 14 years of working in the business, I've never seen crayfish in a lawn."

He then looked around, a bit confused.  After all, we live in a suburban-type setting with no river/creek/pond anywhere near us.

Lawn man: "Do you have a lot of wild life around here?"

That's when I looked around.  Houses.  Mailboxes. Parked cars. Cell phone towers.

Me: "Um, well we have squirrels and rabbits." I thought about it for a few more seconds.  "I think we have a stray possum every now and again."

Lawn man: "Huh.  Crayfish! I'd just throw some dirt over them and re-seed." He smiled.

Me: "Throw some dirt on it?"

Lawn man: "Yup! That's what I'd do."

I went in the house and announced to the wife that we have crayfish.  Neither of us believe that for one second but we have no idea what it actually is, so I suppose we shouldn't poo-poo the idea until we have some other ideas. Our vote is that it's a mushroom/fungus type of ordeal.  We've had stink horns and puff balls and vomit/slime fungus but never crayfish-type bubbling-from-below fungus.

I think there is a fungus among us.  The Addiverse is offering a reward for information on what the hell is growing in our lawn and includes information on how to get rid of it.  If it does indeed turn out to be cray fish, I will give the Lawn Man the prize.

Maybe I'll just throw some dirt on him and keep the prize for myself.