Yes. Mushrooms!

I got home from work 2 days ago and found these orange mushrooms growing in the front yard.



We cut a tree down a few years ago, so the roots must be starting to decay. (The leftover trunk on the top right.) We had a week of intense heat followed by a period of rain, so it’s been pretty humid and gross out. The perfect mushroom growing conditions.

I thought it was crazy how they popped up overnight. I thought that was as big as they were going to get and they’d be dead in a few day once the ground dried up.

When I got home from work the next day, they had gone from this……



to this……



Again, from this….



to this….



That’s crazy!!!!

I decided to look them up online and figure out what they are. They’re Jack O Lanterns. Hum….I wonder how they got that name? Ha! Got you! Not because they’re orange! Well, maybe because they’re orange, but it’s also because they are bioluminescent!

Not Avatar glow-in-the-dark, but they do give off their own light. You can barely make it out at night. You have to make sure your eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark, then you can see it. Once your eyes adjust to the dark and you can make out the mushrooms, you can’t see the glow anymore.

I set my camera to take a 30 second exposure. At first the shots came out totally black, but once I adjusted the black point, the results were striking!



Pretty crazy, right? Needless to say, they’re poisonous. They won’t kill you, but they’ll make you pretty sick.

I got home from work today and they’ve gotten even bigger.

Day 1:



Day 3:



Day 1:



Day 3:



Day 6:



I wonder how big I should let them get before I start to get concerned about how I’m going to get rid of them?