A very cool Mother's Day present
My 14 year old daughter made me a hand-made "Guide to Unique Fungi Around the World". She took the time to research, hand-write, and illustrate information on 26 fungi that she thought were fascinating- and she included her thoughts as to why they were fascinating in the book. She said that she didn't think her art was very good, but as a completely objective art connoiseur (cough) I thought she did very well.
I've gotten interested in fungi- they're interesting, they're everywhere, they're easy to photograph with a phone (unlike birds, which won't stay still no matter how hard I plead), and making spore prints is fun although I still feel "leave no trace" guilty every time I take one out of the ground. They're a heck of a challenge to identify. However, the best part of it is that my kids have gotten into it, too. When we go walk the dog, we all look for mushrooms- and we've found a couple of good ones; a puffball and a false green parasol. We took a knife to the puffball to see what was inside and my teenagers- teenagers!- were practically jumping up and down to see what would happen.
That's why my daughter's gift means so much to me- I love it because she made it, but she told me after she gave it to me that she liked doing it, and that she found out that there are a "lot of cool mushrooms out there". Youth interested in nature. That's my mother's day gift.
