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Hello again People of the Internet!
I have resurfaced from the deep.
It seems mushrooms have become all the rage around here. I blame Merlin Sheldrake for my fungi obsession. Somewhere mid-summer, I burrowed into the underland to explore the unmakers of the world through his brilliant book Entangled Life. I would review it, but I think it’s better to let the author speak for himself…and eat his own words…
It was from this book I first learned about zombie ants and the mad sorcerer fungus that animates them to achieve its nefarious goals. True story: There’s a type of parasitic fungus (Ophiocordyceps) whose spores shower down on carpenter ants as they go about their ant business. The fungus penetrates the ant’s exoskeleton, then chemically hijacks the ant’s central nervous system, forcing it to do things it wouldn’t normally do. Specifically, the fungus makes the ant climb up on vegetation, and lock its jaws on a vein of a leaf. The fungus continues to grows inside the ant’s body, and out through the ant’s feet, which it ties down to the plant’s leaf with threads of itself. Then it sprouts a mushroom out the creature’s dead body so its reign of spore terror can continue on to infect other unsuspecting carpenter ants. I drew this picture just for you because I thought you might want a visual:
Hey, what do you call a fungi that makes music?
A decomposer.
Waka waka waka!
Be good so you don’t get in truffle!
Sorry my mushroom puns are in spore taste.
The fairy ring showed up yesterday. Last year it erupted on August 20, only it went unrecognized as a ring because of its size. This year the entire circle is obvious, tethered as it is to the sycamore tree.
The radius is longer than the tape measure, so a girl has to do math and calculations involving pi. 🤓The circumference is just over 84 feet.
There is marjoram and thyme growing nearby, but the ring’s inner sanctum is not to be traversed. A girl who is already prone to exhaustive dancing has to draw the line somewhere. There are principles to be upheld. 🧚🏼
My Little Spacebook 