A few weeks ago, I came upon a small scene in the Sandias which included mushrooms, lichens, moss, ferns, and even a baby conifer of some kind. It seemed magical, like something out of a fairy tale.
As I was taking a few photos, a father and son came along. The son was about 8 or 9 years old and he told me, with great excitement, about the giant mushroom they’d just seen. I pointed to the mushrooms I was photographing and asked if he’d noticed the little ones. His dad broke in and said, “Aren’t those puffball mushrooms?” I said I had no idea, and he told me that when you poke a hole in them, dust flies out.
He found a stick and punctured one, and sure enough, poof! Fine brown dust flew out of the mushroom. Then his son had to try with a different mushroom, and again, poof!
The two of them continued down the trail. At that point, it would have been very much in character for me to have thought something along the lines of, “Boys will be boys, no matter their age.” That’s not what happened though. As soon as they were out of sight, I used the tip of my hiking stick to puncture a third mushroom. Poof!!!
Turns out that puffball dust is pretty magical all by itself; it’s actually a cloud of spores that are dispersed by the wind. Poof!!! Brand-new mushrooms!
This, to me, is a particularly lovely photo with its multiple shades of green, punctuated by the soft browns! Gorgeous!
I do like how 'the kid' in you showed up after the man and boy left :)