Per usual mushrooms do what they want. This species is not supposed to be popping right now until later in the year. The conditions were right though to fire it off though.

This is easily the biggest one(foot for scale is the best I could do in the bramble)I have come across and with all the rain we have been getting, split the poor guy apart.

Bonus eastern box turtle.

Another coral I stumbled across in the woods. The color on these guys is incredible.

Bonus shot of some baby racoons.

I have a small flower bed next to the house and God knows what the previous owner did to this thing. Where I have a silt loam with heaps of organic matter this is a mix of sand and mulch(plus random trash ala 10 gogurt plastics) seemingly. So I have been bringing it back to life by adding organic matter from sunflowers, zinnia, whatever I have come fall. But as interim solution I tried my hand with poppies.

Overall it went well but I had too high of a planting density and over watered which caused some trouble. My previous house was in a sandy loam so I am adjusting to not watering everyday here.

I went over board on Zinnia varieties and have 5 in the garden. I think this is my favorite I have seen yet.

I am always amazed at how malleable genetics can be. You can get zinnia in every color, size, and look. I love these guys and the deer do not love them which is a huge plus.

Bonus shot of a spider guarding a sunflower.

I think Oudemansiella furfuracea but I know these guys are weird/are actively being studied. From what I read the genus is being fleshed out and sequencing is making things complicated on what species are what. Also they did the old genus switcheroo on me as happens in mycology as I use to call these Xerula. I will go to my grave using Armillaria bulbosa though, can not take that one from me.

This was my first time growing hollyhock to flowers. I over watered and gave them a fungal infection but they seem to be doing ok.

They are about 6 foot tall and blowing up with flowers.

These guys are pretty common around here. They are edible but I have never been a huge fan. As far as fun texture, I will give them a 10/10.

As is tradition I am going to give you a bit of a story here. While I may not be as eloquent as Dual hopefully I can get half the charm.

My old man is an engineer coming up on the end of his career and has lived working with CAD of some flavor for the majority of it. This past Christmas to his fatherly discontent the kids got him a Bambu Labs PS1. Even with is himing and hawing about it being too expensive and he was not ready to use it, it got the ball rolling. Come the tail end of February he has a standing desk, dual monitor, a Dell refurb with a Nvidia fancy ECC GPU that I told him is overkill....yet he got bit by the bug which I am greatful for. Warms my heart to see the old enginerd excited.

Now, time for the part that is actually pertinent to this sub. He has been having fun learning his new software and tools so I asked him to print me some new scales for my Penquin as I was not a fan of the tan ones I ordered. I am a big fisherman so he learned how to create textures and what you see is an attempt at fish scales. It took a bit of manual filing in some areas as he is a perfectionist and wants the tightest tolerances. Then the small buttons that actuate the sliding lock(press fit) are too tight of tolerances for the PS1 so I might try another solution there or even leave it as is.

If anyone is interested I am sure he would be tickled pink that others are using his design so let me know and I will pass them over. Just be ready to do some minor filling, although I will give him notes so he can update the files, fingers crossed yours will fit even better.

As a last note, I have some DCM I was planning on attempting some vapor smoothing on PLA with. I have a degree where I took plenty of chemistry and slung around my fair share of nasty solvents in labs so I will take the correct precautions so my progeny have the correct amount of digits. But if anyone has experience here I would take any insight as I tested on some BambuLabs silky PLA and the results were ok but not stellar.

The main image is my attempt as a sexy photo, but here are a couple more simple ones.

I came across a big dryads saddle today. I got Shep in there for scale, I would say it is about .25 sheps in diameter.

The other thing I love about these mushrooms is the trippy underside(I forgot to grab a video). Then I swear they smell like a watermelon rind when you cut into them but my wife argues against, so I could use a decider here. As always hope you all are enjoying the weather and get a chance to be in nature.

I have been finding lots of these guys over the past week.

When I first started hunting for morels I researched how to identify trees based of bark so I could hunt under the elms, tulips, sycamores, etc. what I ended up finding out is mushrooms grow where mushrooms want, rules of thumb be damned.

This patch here was 30 feet away from the closest tree and at that they were pines. Morels cannot be stopped apparently. Happy hunting folks.

This is another genus I never looked deeply into so others are welcome to chime in. If I had to guess I would go with brunnea over caroliniana but that is off memory so who knows.

The one thing I do know is that morels come shortly after I start seeing these guys. I already found ramps so just need to check morels off. Hope spring has arrived for you guys as well.

These are some of the first mushrooms to pop around me in spring. The red is always a welcome sight. Not great for eating but I have put them in salads more so for color then them actually tasting good.