Guess what???

This little boy?...

He turned 1 today.

Happy Birthday, beautiful boy. I love you!

A Full Invasion

Sylvia Plath - Mushrooms

Overnight, very

Whitely, discreetly,

Very quietly

Our toes, our noses

Take hold on the loam,

Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,

Stops us, betrays us;

The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on

Heaving the needles,

The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.

Our hammers, our rams,

Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,

Widen the crannies,

Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,

On crumbs of shadow,

Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.

So many of us!

So many of us!

We are shelves, we are

Tables, we are meek,

We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers

In spite of ourselves.

Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning

Inherit the earth.

Our foot's in the door.

Even the trees can't escape. 

 I just noticed 2 mushrooms in this photo. I was only aiming to photograph one.

 I call this the ballerina mushroom on account of its tutu.

But, the top view is pretty prosaic.

Remember the penis mushroom? This is what it becomes AFTER it lives a few days as a phallus.

And then this.

 And, after that, this.

Apparently the penis mushroom is called a shaggy mane, and it is one of the inky caps. It's edible, folks. 8-/

These wee golden fellows were huddled together under some pine mulch.

A few more photographs from today:

A Manitoba autumn day. (The little building is our sauna)

Sun through Oak.

Sun through Elm.

If I don't blog for awhile, it just means I have sun in my hair and leaves in my shoes.

Or...the mushrooms got me.

Oh, how I love this:

It won't change your life, but it will make your day a little more magical. I can almost guarantee it.

(I want an air piano now.)

Mushaboom...

We have been invaded. Seriously.

What kind of mushroom is this??

Say it with me: O-M-G!!!! (blech!)

Apparently autumn = mushroom season out here in the wilds of Manitoba. Or...well...at least in the wilds of my yard. Everywhere I look, I discover a new mushroom. They unsettle me, the way they show up overnight...poking their silent, creepy selves up out of the ground to be stepped on unwittingly, or touched accidentally.

Have you ever lifted a damp board, or a rock, say...only to discover several surprised insects skittering away? Do you remember that strange revulsion that tingles up and down your spine and makes you want to dance a dance of convulsive horror? That is how I feel about mushrooms.

Especially that phallic one. What...you didn't notice?

(Yeah right.)

Flat little toadstools near the apple tree. Little umbrella under a pine. Phallus by the driveway (and it's still growing. It's an inch taller since yesterday.) Nasty brain-like thing near my flower bed.

*shiver*

Help?

In other news, this is happening at a rapid pace:

Well, summer...it was good while it lasted, right?

The Best Thing I Have Read in Awhile:

God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule

Amen.

Do Fun Stuff!!

Ryan, form Pacing the Panic Room worked his butt off to get this album together in honor of his son LB. LB has SMS.

All proceeds from the sale of this album go to PRISMS to establish a SMS Research Fellowship that funds a graduate student to study SMS and support the SMS community.

Awesome, right??

This album is adorable, and will be enjoyed by kids and parents alike. Go ahead...have a listen. Try not to dance to Potty Time. I dare you...lol. If you like it, and have the funds...buy it. It's for a great cause.

Wild Wednesday: Dumbo

This is Dumbo.

From marinebio.org (an absolutely fascinating site):

Description & Behavior

Finned deep-sea octopuses, of the genus Grimpoteuthis (Robson 1932), consist of at least 20 known species and are poorly known. All octopuses in the genus Grimpoteuthis are nicknamed "dumbo octopuses," due to the ear-like fins that protrude from the sides of their mantles just above their eyes which resemble the elephant ears of the Disney character Dumbo.

Grimpoteuthis octopuses are part of the Cirrina suborder. Cirrates differ from other octopuses by generally having abandoned jet propulsion, relying on their fins as their primary mode of locomotion. Their two large fins are supported by an internal shell. Their arms are webbed, often with the webs reaching to the tips of the arms. Suckers are present in a single row along the length of the arm, as well as cirri (fleshy papillae or nipple-like structures along the bottom edges of the arms, see the cephalopod glossary for more details), generally two per sucker. Ink sacs and anal flaps are generally absent. Ink sacs are organs composed of a gland that secretes ink, a sac that stores ink and a duct that connects it to the rectum. The ink sac generally appears black from the outside although it may be covered by silvery tissue in some species.

Grimpoteuthis are in the family  Opisthoteuthidae (umbrella octopuses) and have short, squat, semi-gelatinous bodies with an internal U or V-shaped cartilaginous shell. They lack the secondary web (the web which extends from each arm to the primary web) and longer cirri found in the family  Cirroteuthidae and the eyes are much more developed. They can grow up to about 20 cm in length. Species in the Opisthoteuthidae family have suckers without tooth-like structures. The radula (chitinous, ribbon-like band in the mouth of cephalopods that contains up to seven transverse rows of teeth that aid in transport of food into the esophagus) in Opisthoteuthidae tend to be reduced or completely absent, as most species swallow their prey whole.

Grimpoteuthis are benthic creatures, living basically at the bottom of the ocean at depths of around 3,000-4,000 m (the average ocean depth is 3,790 m). Some species alternate between sitting on the ocean floor and swimming above it ( benthopelagic). Others are known to be completely  pelagic.

Four modes of active locomotion have been observed in dumbo octopuses: crawling, take-off, fin swimming and pumping and one passive mode called umbrella-style drifting. Fin swimming is the mode of locomotion that is most often observed, wherein they use their fins to drift through the water. Grimpoteuthis is known to be neutrally buoyant, which allows the animal to drift passively with its fins expanded. The take-off mode is a sudden, single contraction of the brachial crown (the arms and tentacles surrounding the mouth) and surrounding web. Pumping is a slow mode of locomotion which involves peristaltic waves, which are symmetrical contractions of muscles, in the primary and intermediary webs.

World Range & Habitat

Species of this family are believed to exist on the deep ocean floor in all oceans of the world. Specific species have been found in the waters surrounding New Zealand, Australia, Monterey Bay, Oregon, Phillipines, Martha's Vineyard, Papua, New Guinea and the Azores.

» GBIF occurrence data in Google Earth [Tips] | Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) (World Distribution) [about]

Feeding Behavior (Ecology)

Little is known about the behavior and habits of Grimpoteuthis. They feed on worms, bivalves, copepods and crustaceans.

Each sucker has a pair of cirri, which are thought to have some role in feeding, perhaps by creating currents of water that help bring food closer to the central beak.

Life History

Little is known about Grimpoteuthis reproduction. The male reproductive tract shows considerable variation between species, and thus there is significant confusion in the identification of certain parts.

In the family Opisthoteuthidae, of which the Grimpoteuthis is a part of, a hectocotylus is absent, but some species exhibit other forms of sexual modification; enlarged suckers being the most common modification. The spermatophores of octopuses in this family have lost their ejaculatory apparatus and form sperm packets with an operculum. The sperm packets are transferred to the female's mantle cavity. The eggs of this family are very large, and covered with a tough casing which is secreted by the oviducal gland and hardens in seawater. Eggs are individually laid directly on the ocean floor, on the undersides of rocks or shells. The ovaries of these octopuses contain eggs at different stages, implying that they breed continually instead of having a distinct breeding season.

And, after all of that technical mumbo-jumbo...just watch this:

Dumbo is sure to steal your heart. :)