Solitary Snow

On a cold, winter walk in the woods, you'll often find snow yet there was none this day. Strangely, you see some on a few branches where it should have been the first place to melt not the last. Walk closer and it looks like dirty snow. Walk even closer for inspection and suddenly, your focus miraculously transforms snow into fungus. Nature fooled me twice in one walk and in less than 50 feet apart. She's such a joker.

Really. A cursory glance would lead you to believe the heavens had deposited the white fluffy play stuff on this branch. Yet the rains had washed that away. Imagine if the marshmallow Fluff factory decided to rain down their gooey treat upon sweet-toothed kids? Every child would be vying for a drop of "snowflake" on the tongue. Meanwhile, it'd wreck havoc on windshield wipers and tires for the commute home. Let's leave all that to the imagination and instead continue to walk through the amazing world of fungus. It certainly deserves its own taxonomic kingdom as it is a world of its own to explore and respect.