Mushrooms Elbow One Another for Living Space, Bob Eats a Starbucks Puppuccino, and We See Our End in the Falling Leaves

 

I have so few adventures these days that even the smallest blip in my daily routine prompts me to examine that blip from all sides to see if I can milk it for some kind of Ricochet post.

I just like to write.  Politics would seem to be a natural topic to write about for a site filled with passionate conservatives, but I just can’t bear to write about politics.  I love to read about politics on Ricochet, especially those posts that expose the foolish and sometimes anti-American decisions that have marked Biden’s tenure thus far.  I enjoy seeing fools get their comeuppance, especially those on the Left.  But writing about hardcore politics is just not my jam.

So I end up writing about, oh, say, mushrooms.  Here are some I found this morning in our flower beds.  We’re very good at growing mushrooms and other fungi here in Oregon.

As I stared down at these newly-emerged mushrooms, they looked as though they were elbowing one another aside, dooming the less aggressive mushrooms to a stunted life — or no life at all.  Life in all its forms — from the lowly amoeba, to my front yard mushrooms, to mankind itself — is desperate to live.

Bob the dog, our good boy, is six years old today.  During our daily walk, we stopped in Starbucks for a free puppuccino.  It’s no more than a cup full of whipped cream, but Bob loves him some puppuccinos.

I wanted to get a cute shot of Bob with his snout covered in whipped cream, but I had neither the patience nor the skill to get the shot I envisioned.  So I’m left with this shot of Bob wearing his winter outfit, his birthday party hat perched atop his head.  Bob may be looking a bit uncertain about all of this, but I like to think that Bob is dissembling — and that he actually loves to dress up and party.  So get drunk on puppuccinos and party on, Bob!

Well, that’s about as much as I can milk out of Bob’s birthday.

I’m posting a few photos of some autumn leaves that Marie and I encountered this morning on our walk around the neighborhood.  So now you don’t have to throw your kids in the car and drive up to Maine to peep at the fall foliage.  That’s Marie below keeping track of Bob’s poop so that she can tell me, when I catch up, where the poop is located so that I can scoop up the poop with my plastic poop bag.  (I enjoy a good scatological sentence, don’t you?)

And here are more leaves.

Finally, here’s a quilt by Marie that will greet our trick-or-treaters come Halloween.  Yes, it’s a “murder of crows. (I’ve been waiting for a good part of my life to use that curious word for a “group” of crows.)

OK, those are my thoughts for this day.  I’m sorry they’re not deeper, but one has to work with what one has. Read Arahant, Mrs. She, Bastiat, Quinn, or many others on Ricochet if you need some depth with your reading.

Though nature is dying all about us, I still wish you a happy autumn. Halloween is coming, dear Ricocheters. On that day, the calories in Snickers bars and in pumpkin-flavored white Russian cocktails don’t count. So party on.

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  1. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Goodness, that was lovely, every part of it! Although I must say the stream of golden leaves was my favorite–except Bob, of course. Are those Aspens?

    • #1
  2. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    KentForrester: OK, those are my thoughts for this day.  I’m sorry they’re not deeper, but one has to work with what one has.

    Thanks for your thoughts. I’m all in favor of the shallow end of the pool.

    • #2
  3. KentForrester Coolidge
    KentForrester
    @KentForrester

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Goodness, that was lovely, every part of it! Although I must say the stream of golden leaves was my favorite–except Bob, of course. Are those Aspens?

    Thanks you, Susan.  Unhappily, I don’t know much about trees, either.  They could be Baobabs for all I know. 

    • #3
  4. Marjorie Reynolds Coolidge
    Marjorie Reynolds
    @MarjorieReynolds

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Goodness, that was lovely, every part of it! Although I must say the stream of golden leaves was my favorite–except Bob, of course. Are those Aspens?

    Thanks you, Susan. Unhappily, I don’t know much about trees, either. They could be Baobabs for all I know.

    You’re better off not knowing. My cousin who’s a forrester, came to stay with me last month. He has this awful annoying tendency to list all the trees we pass on the road and diagnose if they are dead or dying. The Ash trees are doomed apparently.

    • #4
  5. Captain French Moderator
    Captain French
    @AlFrench

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Goodness, that was lovely, every part of it! Although I must say the stream of golden leaves was my favorite–except Bob, of course. Are those Aspens?

    Not aspens. Look like some kind of maple. There are many horticultural varieties.

    • #5
  6. Captain French Moderator
    Captain French
    @AlFrench

    Oregon has lots of wild mushrooms. This time of year the forests are full of mushroom pickers.

    These lovely chanterelles graced my dinner plate, sautéed in butter, along side a nice T-bone.

    • #6
  7. KentForrester Coolidge
    KentForrester
    @KentForrester

    Captain French (View Comment):

    Oregon has lots of wild mushrooms. This time of year the forests are full of mushroom pickers.

    These lovely chanterelles graced my dinner plate, sautéed in butter, along side a nice T-bone.

    Really?  You eat wild mushrooms?  I don’t eat tame ones unless Marie disguises them as she sneaks them into our soups.  

    • #7
  8. Tex929rr Coolidge
    Tex929rr
    @Tex929rr

    We used walk the dogs in the evening, but this summer was so humid we started taking them in the morning.  The minute my wife gets up Lola wants everyone to know she is ready.  Scotch is behind the chair and is just as excited but much more polite.

    BTW, no leaves falling from cold weather here yet.

     

    https://youtube.com/shorts/o0MBwpRnk5s?feature=share

    • #8
  9. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    Thanks, Kent. It was past time for another Bob photo.

    • #9
  10. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Captain French (View Comment):

    Oregon has lots of wild mushrooms. This time of year the forests are full of mushroom pickers.

    These lovely chanterelles graced my dinner plate, sautéed in butter, along side a nice T-bone.

    Wow!  That thing looks like it would kill a horse! Good thing you know your mushrooms. What is the one that is a menacing red and the cap grows inverted? I think it has a funny smell when it decomposes or you step on it?   Happy Birthday Bob!  Ken – your post is wonderful and what the doctor ordered!

    • #10
  11. Captain French Moderator
    Captain French
    @AlFrench

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Captain French (View Comment):

    Oregon has lots of wild mushrooms. This time of year the forests are full of mushroom pickers.

    These lovely chanterelles graced my dinner plate, sautéed in butter, along side a nice T-bone.

    Really? You eat wild mushrooms? I don’t eat tame ones unless Marie disguises them as she sneaks them into our soups.

    The only ones I’ll pick myself are chanterelles, as they are very distinctive. But I’ll buy and eat others.

    • #11
  12. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Marjorie Reynolds (View Comment):

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Goodness, that was lovely, every part of it! Although I must say the stream of golden leaves was my favorite–except Bob, of course. Are those Aspens?

    Thanks you, Susan. Unhappily, I don’t know much about trees, either. They could be Baobabs for all I know.

    You’re better off not knowing. My cousin who’s a forrester, came to stay with me last month. He has this awful annoying tendency to list all the trees we pass on the road and diagnose if they are dead or dying. The Ash trees are doomed apparently.

    I wish I could be more like your cousin.   I do pay attention to tree species when driving, but don’t know them all. (Emerald ash borers have killed all the big ash trees in our part of the U.S. and are heading west for their next meals.)

    However, one of my better show-off moments came when we were doing a delivery of items from our son to his friend who was working at the zoo on Belle Isle (in the Detroit River).  He told about his projects and explained that they were looking for some wild rice plants in order to complete an exhibit.  I told him that they had some wild rice right there on Belle Isle, and described the road intersection where they were growing in a wet area off to the side. That was many years ago, and our son tells us that his friend still brings up that episode now and then. It made a favorable impression on him.  Wild Rice (Zizania aquatica) is fairly distinctive, though.  

     

    • #12
  13. KCVolunteer Lincoln
    KCVolunteer
    @KCVolunteer

    KentForrester

    On that day, the calories in Snickers bars and in pumpkin-flavored white Russian cocktails don’t count. So party on.

    Ah, yes, but calories still exist. Just remember to take that into account later.

    • #13
  14. Lilly B Coolidge
    Lilly B
    @LillyB

    KentForrester: I have so few adventures these days that even the smallest blip in my daily routine prompts me to examine that blip from all sides to see if I can milk it for some kind of Ricochet post.

    I love this first sentence so much that I’m commenting before even reading the rest (but I’ll get to it). I’m also pretty sure I will make my 8th grader read it for inspiration (unless it gets into R-rated territory). She was just lamenting that she is really tired of writing personal narratives because her life life isn’t that exciting. She says she’s running out of things to write about. But she loves writing, especially writing fantasy and “world-building.” If you’re a writer, it seems to me you can write about anything and everything.

    • #14
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