Summertime, when the living is easy.

*A note to viewers of this blog.  I highly recommend clicking on the images to see their larger and better-quality versions.  Enjoy!*

Fine Vermont weather and wonderful company doesn't always make for successful mushroom foraging.  Will Cox and Josh Petter, pictured above, scan the landscape for signs of mycological mystery.

Our only fungal find of the day (found by Will).  The thoroughly unexciting and slug-devoured Megacollybia platyphylla.  This was the mushroom we found fruiting in abundance during out last foray (see previous post).   

A stunning Larger Blue Flag Iris (Iris versicolor) growing wild in the woods.

The small blue and yellow flowers of the True Forget-me-not (Myotis scorpioides).

Amid the leaf litter can be seen the strikingly petite flowers of Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens).

The invasive but captivating Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum), also called Devil's Paintbrush.   Native to the alpine regions of central and southern Europe.

The makings to a nice early summer bouquet.

Should your options for safe transport in a vehicle be limited, I suggest wetting some paper towel, wrapping it around the lower half of the bouquet, and placing the bouquet gently in a hiking boot.

I take these mushrooms, fruiting out of our compost, to be a positive indicator of our compost's health!

Same mushrooms, different angle.

Clouds can make for a pretty sunset but they can also prevent you from seeing Venus pass over the Sun.  Oh well, there's always next time.