Unauthorized Fungi

I know this makes no sense. I cannot explain it, and even when I try to the best of my abilities, it still sounds ridiculous to my own ears. Still, it makes me do this:

{Unauthorized fungal growth in my backyard.}

So here it is, the best explanation I can muster. It is akin to a post I did years ago (that sounds so weird!) about vegetables sprouting. Both of these phenomenons just give me the willies. It kind of makes my skin crawl, and I cannot identify why except that it seems that life is teeming all around me in places or objects that I thought to be inanimate or... 'still.' Root vegetables- I expect them to stop growing once they have been ripped from the earth, shipped to the store where I purchase them and resign them to the bottom of my pantry until a recipe calls them hither. When they grow, unauthorized, it is like they're being raised from the dead. It's like- zombie vegetables. They're exerting a power that seems just short of paranormal, and it's going on right under my nose and I have no control over it. Mushrooms are a little less offensive, because at least they have not breached security by entering the boundaries of my home. They belong outside. But these literally seemed to have grown up overnight and their prolific nature freaks me out! Where did they come from? How did they grow so fast? What will stop them? What are they feasting on? I made Timm quickly dispose of them.

{Their corpses.}
{Incidentally, why do we have to have words like 'corpse'? It's so.. icky. So is 'crotch', 'panties' and numerous slang words I won't mention here.}

Alas, they are also beautiful. They were a bright pumpkin color. I was actually freaked out enough that I could only take pictures from the deck and instructed Timm to take these close-ups. My freak-out was not totally unfounded though, since they were steaming and had juices running off of them. Seriously.
Timm of course thought they were very cool and was very proud of this find.


In retrospect (of an hour) I wish that I had taken my own pictures. Timm did a great job, but after they had been properly disposed of in the garbage, I caught a vision of some macro shots I would have taken and framed for my kitchen, orange being a main color. Maybe I can photoshop and crop some. So I admit, they are beautiful, and it was probably a bit of an 'over-reaction'. But it still makes me wanna go a little like this: