Lillie Park and the Humongous Fungus

This past weekend we returned to Lillie Park to explore the south and east ends.

Last time we visited Haven Lake.

This part of the park turned out to be even more lovely than the north side with two big ponds and lots of paths.

 

This is the path directly into the park from the parking lot. About five seconds after taking this picture (we had walk about 10 feet), we came running back out, literally, chased by a swarm of mosquitoes. We took refuge in the car and decided it was time to arm ourselves a little more heavily against the insane insects. We drove to the hardware store and returned with THIS!

DEET is our friend.

I'm no lover of pesticides, but this is war! We just wanted to go for a nice walk, not get eaten alive. (We were careful to wash it off when we got home, and not touch the cat, and we seem to be ok!) The repellant definitely worked and we were able to walk through the park with only a few little tastes taken of us. As long as we kept moving they seemed to leave us alone, but they continued to dive-bomb us if we stopped for more than a few seconds. It was unfortunate because we would have liked to stay at the park longer, but I'm sure we'll be back. The locals claim that Fall is the best time to do outdoor things because it gets too cold for the bugs.

Anyway... we set off down the path again and eventually found one of the ponds, Turtle Rock Pond.

This pond originally had a boardwalk through the middle but they were having some trouble keeping it dry. The ducks didn't seem to mind.

We expected to see turtles here and thought we saw some heads poking up, but only found one guy who had, unfortunately, become someone's lunch.

He's still pretty.

We continued walking along the paths and saw some big sky, a wild rabbit, and wild grapes.

Can you see him?

We kept seeing little peeks of the second pond, Duck Potato Pond, but there was a lot of growth around the sides.

We found a lot of different paths that took us away from the ponds and then back again with varied growth and views, all beautiful.

We finally came out at an outlook for Duck Potato Pond and found the turtles we'd been looking for!

Can you see them all? I count at least six out of the water.

By now the mosquitoes didn't care that we were covered in DEET and it was time to retreat and return another day. The park had a few more things to show us, though, as we made our way out.

'SHROOMS!

The dense forest and mulch-covered ground were a perfect place for some very interesting fungi. I'm still trying to identify the different kinds, so if you know what they are, let me know!

But the most impressive of all was a mushroom I saw from 15 feet away. We thought it was a lot of garbage next to a picnic bench, but it was actually the largest mushroom I have ever seen. It was in pieces, which is why it looked like garbage, but it was definitely a mushroom! It looked and smelled exactly like the white mushrooms you buy at the grocery store.

My hand, for some perspective.

Close by we found a normal sized mushroom which we thought was the same kind:

I'm still so impressed with that humongous fungus! I've never seen anything like it.

And finally, because I can't leave you without some reference to the weather, our alarm clock's got nothing on this early morning wake up call!

Over and out.