What would you do if you won the lottery?
I would not win the lottery unless someone gave me a winning ticket as a gift, in which case I’d probably share with the gift giver. I don’t play games of chance (life is a gamble, so I can’t say I don’t gamble).
But today I feel like I won the life lottery. I enjoyed my day, even with the long drive made longer by having to drive around a bad accident on the Interstate. Then I had to ask for help getting my gas cap cover to open. I must have broken it. But a very nice man helped me (I actually walked into the truck stop and picked a man who was being friendly to the clerk to ask for help). After we got the thing open, he saw the knitting bag in the back of my car. He said I looked crafty and me this flattened coin, saying I could bang on it and make myself a silver ring. There are good folks out there!
I listened to NPR the whole way, and though it wasn’t overt fascinating, I learned a few things about brains and such. Since it was sunny, the drive was just more cheerful. Seeing white pelicans flying for the second week in a row helped!
When I got home I checked on the horses. Lee says Drew was mean to him at the gate, like he was with my son the time he got hurt. I think we will have to work on that.
My gosh, in only two days the horses got more than double the amount of burs they had before. When I first saw Apache, he not only had all these burs, but hay was attached to it. This is bad enough!
After the horses and chickens were fed, I was watching football when my neighbor texted me asking if I’d ever seen one of these.
This is a very rare fungus. Oddly, the Devil’s Cigar or Texas Star is found only in central Texas and Japan. I got very excited when Vicki sent the photo, because I knew exactly what it was. There had been an article about finding it in Inks Lake state park recently.
This is the first or second observation in Milam County on iNaturalist. I’m so glad to have photos with the GPS attached so I could share them and get Vicki’s sighting verified. I wish we could hear it hissing! Since very few people have seen the Texas Star, I really do feel like I won the lottery.
I’m going to go see it myself in the morning. I hope it’s not faded. What a find! I should be less tired tomorrow and maybe I can write something better in the Master Naturalist blog.
The Hermits' Rest 