Lazy Friday with the Totally Awesome Mydas Fly! And the "Vomiter!" (Chlorophyllum molybdites)

Cheryl and Leo read a book together.

Mostly cloudy with high humidity.  What do you do on a day like this?  Well,  Cheryl is doing Soap and I'm shoring up the Bubbles, chalk, and other details to prep for tomorrow's Farmer's Market.  Last night's Market got canceled because of rain and mud.  No biggy as Cheryl was not planning on going anyway.  Thankfully, she has put the baking bug behind her and she is fully focused on soap once again.  

The heat seems to take a toll on my bubble making.  It appears the bubbles do not like the high temps and high humidity.   I know rain is predicted for tomorrow sometime.   Hopefully not during the farmer's market!  But the bubbles tend to like the rain far better than the sun.   And if I want to sell the remaining jars of Super Secret Bubble mix,  I would want to show them off under the best conditions.

I finally cleared up the dehydrator just in time to try some chalk.   Every time I bake the chalk, it ends up looking...  "Chalky".   The color fades and the powdery white dust appears.  The experiment was to use the dehydrator to get the colors to stay vivid while reducing the plaster dust effect.  So far, the seem to work, but not as well as I had hoped.   Once the rain stops for the summer, I will have a surplus to chalk to experiment with. 

But now that the Chalk is finished,  I am now using the dehydrator to dry out the Chanterelles we found  this morning.   Only a handful!  And it would appear that the smooth Chanterelles are just beginning.  Perhaps by Monday,  there will be enough out there to gather a decent amount.   But for now, it appears the yellow Chanterelles are almost over...  at least on the hill where we usually find them.   But with the Smooth ones coming up, they will fill the void nicely.

The weather has been making lots of different mushrooms very happy this year.    The False Parasol mushroom is no exception!   Normally, if we see this one at all, it is a solitary mushroom in some yard. But this year,  they completely covered the neighbor's yard downtown.  And not only were there a LOT of them,  they were HUGE!  I picked a couple just so I could take their picture.   I know they have a bad reputation,(Chlorophyllum molybdites is the most frequently eaten poisonous mushroom in North America)  but I do find them rather pretty and awesome simply because of their size.  The Green Gills are a  sure fire means of Identifying them.

Note the Green Gills next to the White paper.

I don't need to get a spore print, but that would also be green.   Anything with green gills or a green spore print...DON"T eat it!   Unless you enjoy throwing up... a LOT. Hence!  The nickname : Vomiter! ( according to some stories.)   No thanks! I'll stick to just taking a photo. 

And finally,  the Totally Awesome Mydas Fly!  A scary looking beauty!   They obviously mimic a wasp...  Are fairly large. ( she was about 2.5 inches!) and they have the most shiny, shimmery, iridescent blue wings.   When they flash those orange spots, you think it is a cicada killer! 

But no!  It is a beneficial insect.  Today,  she was laying her eggs around the rotting stumps of the Hackberry tree and the other tree from years ago. The larvae feed off of June bugs and other beetle larvae.  I watched her flying around and laying her eggs one at a time near any small opening in the stump.  I could not see the egg directly though.  Wouldn't you know it, I did no have my camera at the time, so none of these pictures are mine.  

We watched her hatch from her chrysalis  a few days ago and I actually thought she was a moth.  So here we are, several days later and she is back laying her eggs in the same location where she was hatched herself.  I count this as a rare treat, because , according to the web,  the adults of this fly do not live very long after they hatch.  Then again,  there are lots of sub species, so it is hard to tell which ones live the longest/shortest.  Either way,  it is a notable insect.  Pretty, LARGE!  And scary looking all at the same time.  Discovering the 4th dimension in your own back yard... always fun. 

Hope everyone is staying dry, cool and safe on this fantastic Friday!  The Weekend is upon us!  I hope everyone gets outside and enjoys a little bit of it.  Thanks for stopping in.