They are us!

Sticking with this lichen, moss, fungus theme, I read somewhere that the reason why fungal infections are so difficult to get rid of is that we have a lot of fungal dna in us, i.e. we evolved from fungus so trying to kill the infection will practically kill you too. You can get liver failure if you use a high dose of fungal medications. I also read that Vicks Vaporub works as a fungicide. Probably the camphor in the Rx. Much less toxic so worth a try.

I also read in Discover magazine I think, that only 15% of you are you. 85% of you are made up of aggregations of other bacterial and fungal cells. I may be misinterpreting this but I think that's what I read. Will try to find the article.

We seem to have a lot of mushrooms here in the Northeast. The wet weather in the past couple of years no doubt has contributed to the flush of the fungus. We had huge puffballs in our yard the past summer. Try cutting into one of these with the mower. Poof, the air is filled with brown spores. Supposedly all puffballs are edible but I haven't had the nerve to try them. Went out with the mycological association on a beginners intro to mushroom identification. Found a few edible ones, they weren't very delicious but these were not listed as being very choice. My elderly father finds a lot on his daily walks. He brought back a deadly amanita-yellow cap with white sprinkles on the top. He thought it was edible! But he thinks all the mushrooms he finds are edible. Luckily he doesn't cook.

Got a lot of ticks on that mycological assoc. outing though. Five of the nasty buggers on me. I only thought to do a clothes off full body search when I felt one crawling on my arm. Shocked to find four more securely fastened to my body. Luckily they weren't the deer tick. Those are so small I probably wouldn't have noticed until the skin got irritated from the bite. I had a crawling sensation all night long. But that's what you get when you walk through the woods in these parts.