Lately there are numerous mushrooms in the yard and in the woods. Today is sunny and cool and too gorgeous to be inside working…so I took a break and took the camera out to get some mushroom pictures.
I have tried to identify these by using my Field Guide to New England, but I am not an expert by any means so if I have named something incorrectly I’d appreciate the heads up.
My Field Guide
According to the field guide, there are at least 10 deadly poisonous species of mushroom in New England. I sure didn’t know that. In fact I never knew the name of any mushrooms until today. Like my seashell collection, I like them… but never really cared what they were called.
Fly Amanita *Deadly Poisonous
This yellow/orange mushroom is the Fly Amanita and I think the little one (below) is a “baby” since it was growing in the same area as the others, but I am not sure.
Tiny Mushroom - "Fly Amanita"?
The red one below is also poisonous, but doesn’t say “deadly poisonous” like the one pictured above.
Emetic Russula *Poisonous
You can read more about the Emetic Russula mushroom on the site link, but I find it interesting that the site doesn’t mention that this one is poisonous.
Black Bear, photo credit: werner22brigitte @ Pixabay
I live in a small New Hampshire town and my house is surrounded my lots of woods. The area trails and back roads make great places to walk and observe wildlife, but to tell you the truth I am a bit afraid of encountering a black bear.
I know that they will most likely be more afraid of me, but my concern is that I will startle one or see a cub whose mother will think I mean it harm.
The first time I had seen a black bear in the wild was in my yard 4 years ago. I had left the bird feeders out too far into Spring, and we looked out to see a mother and two small (adorable) cubs skirting the woods of the yard. We thought it was pretty cool to see bears, but my son started crying (he’s very afraid of bears) and at the time I didn’t realize it was my bird seed they were after.
Not long after that I was sitting in a chair by the window at about 10pm and had the back light on when I caught a glimpse of movement and saw a large black bear amble past me and up onto the porch. When I got to the back door I realized that there were 2 of them and I made noise to chase them off. One took off into the woods and the other climbed a nearby pine tree.
Not long after, maybe the next morning, I woke up to bent shepherds hooks and broken feeders. I had grown up in Massachusetts and never saw a bear near my house and I was new to living this far out in the wilderness in the north.
It was time to read up on the bears and wildlife in my area. Although it was cool to say I’d seen a bear in my yard, I realized that it was not unusual for my neighbors to have seen bears. Stories of snatched feeders and destroyed chicken coops made me realize that they were numerous …and hungry!
So I learned. I have discovered that feeding the birds in winter- throughout the snowy season – is fine. The bears are hibernating mostly and won’t be a bother. I’ve read that feeding birds in summer is okay too if the feeders are taken in at night, but I found that they will come in mid-day as well to steal thistle seed from the goldfinches…so no daytime feeders either. I’ve even had one swipe my hummingbird feeder!
Birds are totally capable of finding food for themselves in non-winter months, and bears are wild animals that are best left in the wild. Having food around – such as birdseed -invites them to the yard and they cannot get used to having us humans feed them (that is how they see it), or they will come to depend on it.
A local man wrote a column in our town paper about this subject. He said that adult bears who come to depend on eating from humans won’t teach it’s cubs to hunt for their usual wild food and the bears will die. He said that a “fed bear is a dead bear”. So keep that in mind. I sure will.
I’m adjusting to living in a rental house. I’ve even planted a few vegetables in a little patch of lawn out back. But, everything is waterlogged and my tomato plants are looking nice and green, but the buds are falling off.
I read that this is probably due to the excess moisture we’ve had so far this summer. Not to mention the lower than normal temps…like highs of only 68°.
Green Cherry Tomato
The cukes are growing well and I even have a tiny cucumber on one of the vines now. I use tomato cages to surround my squash and cukes so the dog (my landlady’s dog) doesn’t run through the garden when the veggies are small and trample them!
cukes
On the other hand, the flowers like this Hydrangea and the Lilies in the background are growing great!
I used photos of this hydrangea plant to create products for my Zazzle BlueHyd store.
I’m not much for going out to see the fireworks displays around the area, although Peterborough usually has a good show at Conval high school. We have gone there a couple of times. In New Hampshire there are some good fireworks for sale and my firefighter son loves to go nuts with them when he comes to visit…no matter what time of year it is.
Fun in NH
This is what he spent his money on last year and we set them off over the course of the week. My favorites are the fountains. I don’t trust the ones that fly off (hopefully) into the air.
My son is not here for the fourth this year, so I might go down to the lake and see if anyone is having a display there. If not, it will be a quiet 4th.
New England's Narrow Road 