Look what I found in the woods!

 Last weekend we were out in the country a bit. We weren’t even in the wilds, just in a small town called Marine on St. Croix. But we strolled the town and went down a fantastic creek to the river’s edge. I was struck by the silence and the wildness even though it wasn’t very wild. I think this is because for a couple years, and for all of my photography lifetime, I have spent all my time in gardens and pocket woods.

And I love my pocket woods, these little pieces of nature squeezed into the city, or even hidden just below it. And though wild things are wild things, with all the wonder and chaos and secret order that confers, some wild things are more wild than others. Yes, my little creek in Saint Minneapolis is full of treasures, but when I go somewhere just that one small step wilder than a creek made at least half of yard run-off, it is not hard to feel it and exult in its freshness.

Nevertheless, a mere twenty second scramble away from a major American City (well, nearly major), I have found a few exotic things in my time.

And so it was today.

Today I found a mushroom I think. My interpretation may be wrong because I am just making it up, but here is what I think happened. The mushroom grew up out of the fallen log. And as it went, growing, it pulled out of the log some of the sap that still ran in the log’s veins, so to speak. Beaded and sticky, the beautiful sap stuck to the surface of the mushroom.

Then I came along.

Lucky me.

At first I thought it was poop.