I collect spores, molds, and fungus

Lots of photos today, so I'll just get right to it. Excepting the final image, I took all of these this morning as Kaylee and I walked our loop through the woods.

First, I liked the effect of the mottling on this tree trunk combined with the dusting of snow on top:



What caught my eye here was the variety of colors and shapes at work: the reddish-brown of the wood, the snow, the green moss, and the broken edges of the stump:



At first glance, the fungus here almost looks like snow stuck to this fallen tree limb:



A closer look:



The fungus is working its way in from the edges as it slowly covers the face of this fallen tree, which obviously was cut back at some point to help clear the trail it fell across:



More fungus growth I spotted during our ramblings:



And another close-up:



Not much left of this tree, but what there is makes for a pretty cool visual:



A picture of Kaylee I managed to get during our walk:



I decided to bring back Kaylee to work with me after lunch, hoping that visiting with everyone would help her burn off some energy—it started snowing this morning and was still coming down steadily when I went home to let her out, so I had a feeling we might not be able to do our usual walk later on. I took this photo of her when we went outside for a break midway through the afternoon:



I'm glad to report that my plan seems to have worked, as she climbed up on the couch next to me about an hour ago and has barely had her eyes open since.