It’s been cold and windy the last few days, with mean temperatures in the 30s, so I’ve generally been an indoors person. A couple of wrapups:

Back when it was warm, I did get a considerably better photo of the “cute flies,” aka skipper fly, Prochyliza xanthostoma. It could still be one other species, but if so would have to be a male - the females don’t have the boldly jutting antennae. You’ll recall that these flies were common on warm days around the deer carcass.

Second up, the orange blob revealed. Heather, in comments here, provided a link to an entry at MushroomObserver. The discussion took place a week or so after my original orange blog observation last March.

One mycologist refers to it as “deer vomit fungus.” Not ever having seen such, I can’t comment on the resemblance, but the actual fungus is Fusarium merismoides. No one has mentioned the white structures evident at the top of the photos at MushroomObserver, or that I commented on as being “stinkhorn-like” last March.

However, the family for this Fusarium is Tuberculariaceae. While I imagine the “tubercule” aspect refers to microscopic structures, it’s certain evocative of those tubular white structures.

Finally, Tuesday night was the monthly Oglethorpe County Firefighters Association meeting, and awards were given out to the firefighters of the year. It’s a very cool plaque. I particularly like our logo, which has accompanied us everywhere we go. It was almost exactly two years ago that we considered a range of alternatives. I’m glad we continued with the old one, broken back leg and all.