I was watering the lawn at dusk the other day and I noticed a large, brown, gleaming, elongated lump on my precious buffalo grass. Outraged, and assuming it was the calling card of an early morning walker’s dog, which’d furtively pooped on my grass while I was still snoring, I swore loudly and aimed a sharp jet of water on it. I expected it to break apart and dissolve but it didn’t.
It remained solid but a weird cloud of red dust sprayed up and out of it.
I gave it another shot with the hose and it happened again. I was a bit afraid of it by now and tiptoed closer. I suspected it might be an extra-terrestrial egg or something and a ten legged squid-like creature was going to burst out and attach itself to my throat or invade one of my orifices only to lay more eggs inside me and emerge from my nose at an inopportune moment. Each time I squirted it, more red dust would mist up in the air.
I was on the phone to my father at the time and he didn’t offer any helpful suggestions. In fact, I think he assumed I was just being silly and it really was dog poop.
The next morning when I was on my way to work I checked it out and by that time, it was surrounded by huge, white mushrooms. By the afternoon all the mushrooms had transformed into the dog turd, brown things and I couldn’t water the lawn because they were all spraying red spores everywhere.
I don’t like mushrooms. I like the white ones you buy in Coles fried up with butter, but I can’t stand the ones that grow in the garden because I’m afraid I’ll accidentally eat one. (It’s the same as how I don’t like heights because I always think I might accidentally jump off the cliff or the fifty storey balcony or something.)
Plus I think fungi is ugly (See photo above).
Even when I buy the mushrooms from Coles I’m always wondering if an East Asian Death Cap or a False Champignon managed to sneak past the quality controllers. I still eat them but I always monitor myself for symptoms for a few hours afterwards.
Ian, the mower man, came and murdered all the fungi with his Victa Mustang, thank God.
I don’t know why they were there in the first place. It’s not like we’ve had any rain. Maybe I’m spending too much time watering the garden.
I suppose this type of post is why nobody seems to be reading my blog anymore.
Sigh…
Any idea what was breeding on my lawn????
