Mystery Solved, Garden, & Speaking The Truth

Last night, while watering my onions in their raised garden bed, I noticed what appeared to be an egg.  You heard right…..an egg!!!!   I directed the hose head toward the egg, to rinse the thin layer of soil off the top of this egg. 

I thought to myself, “what type of critter would lay an egg in a garden and cover it with a thin layer of soil…………………I know, I know………….a SNAKE egg!!!!”   I thought this, because, we’ve had copperhead snakes in the garden, in the past.

Think again; snakes, when laying eggs, will lay a clutch (multiple together in the same area), and will cover the eggs with loose soil or sand.   

After removing the loose soil on top of the egg with water, I picked up my hand shovel and scooped up this egg, called for Bulldog Man to come outside and investigate this egg. 

Bulldog Man picked up the egg with the shovel, and tossed it in our outside trash.  He said whatever was inside has to be dead.  The shell on the egg was cracked open and the mucus membrane was oozing out. 

Now being the inquisitive person I am, I thought about this egg all night long.  Once Bulldog Man left for work, I went outside, put my gloves on, grabbed my hand held garden shovel, and went to retrieve this egg.

The egg was no longer a formed egg.  It was totally cracked open, the shell of the egg was in one section of the trash can, and the strange looking critter was on the other side. 

I pulled out both the critter and egg shell to determine what we were dealing with.

I never seen anything like it before.

Come to find out, it was a Netted Stinkhorn…………..a mushroom!!!!

The actual egg looked like a hardboiled egg, the size of a goose egg.

Around the crack on the egg was a clear/yellowish film, which looked like a membrane.

Here is a picture of the cracked egg, and Netted Stinkhorn mushroom I found.

The cracked shell.

The mushroom broken.

I’ve also attached a You Tube time lapsed video from American Mushroom.com. 

This is the first time I have ever seen such a mushroom.  It’s my understanding, after researching this mushroom; it was named the Netted Stinkhorn because it puts off a terrible smell which in turn attracts flies.  Apparently, the outside temperature was too cool therefore the mushroom didn’t put off its terrible scent (stink).

Due to all the water we received, the moisture levels were high, in turn, producing all kinds of mushrooms throughout my garden.  This was a first though, for the Netted Stinkhorn.

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Speaking of moisture, here’s a look at the damage I created while trying to cut the grass.  Areas of our grass on the property absorbed the water, while in other areas, the water sat. 

While driving and looking in one direction to miss sitting water and destroying the grass, I found myself and the tractor stuck in mud.  It took me about 20 minutes to get the lawn tractor out of the mud by pushing it.  When finished pushing; my shoes and clothing were caked in mud.

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Every couple of days I place new homemade humming bird nectar in the bird feeders.  So far, we haven’t had one humming bird.  We do however, attract the occasional bee or hornet.

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Garden News/Updates 

Even though my green beans were battered from the storms, I didn’t pull them out of the garden for replanting.  I just left them in, and now you can see several beans appearing on the vines. 

My jalapenos, planted in 5 gallon buckets, have flowers blooming on them in preparation of peppers.

The celery ends planted in the ground 2 months back took a hit with water and bugs, only one survived out of 3.  The red cabbage seems to really be coming along, even after the water and leaf-eating bugs.  I continue to spray the leaves (with a water, dawn soap, and alcohol concoction) and recently cut off the outer bug destroyed leaves.  I will say this is a first for cabbage in my garden.

Two years in a row I planted cabbage seeds, and had no luck. This year, I planted healthy looking seedlings picked up from Atwood’s Ranch store and they’re holding their own. 

I added a few more cucumber seeds to these pots, because several of the seedlings ended up getting water logged from the storms.  They seem to be doing pretty good now.  Hopefully in the next 2 weeks, they’ll start climbing the trellis.

My tomato plants have really taken off.  They seem to really like the Okie drip system I installed.  To find out more about that system, go here.  Bulldog Man and I recently trimmed the branches affected by our recent storms.

During our 2 weeks of storms, the tops of my onions were shredded and destroyed (not all but most).  Bulldog Man and I clipped off the shredded and dead parts and now we have new green tops (green onions) and they’re looking really healthy.

On a sad note, the storms ended up killing off my Yukon potatoes.  There was just too much water.  I pulled up all the potato plants from my tires, and harvested what good potatoes were left, making sure to discard the dead potato plants and water logged potatoes.

Each tire was cleaned out and prepped to replant a new variety of potato in the next several days. 

Out of two containers full of sunflower seeds planted, only a handful lived through the storms.  Yesterday, I planted 2 more packets of sunflower seeds to fill in the areas where I originally lost flowers.

Sunflower and a little mushroom next to it.

A notation regarding health…………with all this sitting water from the recent storms rolling through, we have found mosquitoes rapidly breeding.  There have been several cases of meningitis found in the state of Oklahoma.  If you have sitting water and want to prevent a mosquito problem, try to get rid of the sitting water.

Clip Art From Letscoloringpages.com

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Several months back, I purchased a used stove top steamer at a yard sale/estate sale.  I was told by a friend (who will remain nameless) this steamer was a piece of trash, and I should have never purchased it. 

I‘ll have you know after thoroughly cleaning, and sterilizing this steamer it works wonderfully, and I’ve used it numerous times. Here’s evidence the steamer works good. 

Steaming Tamales

By the way, I can use my steamer on an electric stove, gas stove, or campfire; whereas yours can only be plugged into the wall.  My steamer cost me $4.33, yours $89.00 plus the cost of using electric.  So tell me, dear friend, whose steamer is a costly piece of trash now??

No digs……just speaking the truth.

Tell me Blogger friends, do you have a piece of trash you would like to share?