I walk out to my back yard this morning and discover this gigantic mushroom. It is five inches or more across. You can tell we have received some rain lately. I heard close to two and one-half inches in my area. Mushrooms stay well hidden in the typical hot dry weather of Denver. However, when we get some moisture the mushroom spores really come to life. I wonder how long a mushroom spore can lay dormant. One year? Two years? Or do they survive many Years? This is the largest mushroom I ever recall that came up after some moisture. They are usually between one and two inches across. The size of this mushroom attracted me to it. If it was the typical small size I would have just kicked it out and walked over it.

All your life you hear "don't eat the mushrooms". If you do you may die, have wild dreams and your hand may fall off even if you just touch it. Those are scary statements and you naturally stay away from these wild mushrooms. Many stories have been told about people picking wild mushrooms and dying because of their ignorance or stupidity. www.naturallist.com has some good photos of mushrooms. I did not see one that looked similar to the one in my yard though.

No, I am not going to eat this thing. I enjoy mushrooms on my pizza, in my spaghetti and many other plates. These are just small mushrooms not large like this one I found. Mushrooms have a unique taste to them and add flavor to many dishes. Mushrooms can be used as the main ingredient instead of just a compliment to the main ingredient. Recipes can be found at http://www.mushroomrecipes.us/. With that I will let it grow for another day and see if it becomes larger. Maybe tomorrow morning it will be larger and have a leprechaun sitting on it. Then I would really have a story! Just like the tale of finding a dead Bigfoot and finding out it was just a gorilla costume. It sounds like they ate the mushrooms they found in the woods.