Out my back door and down the footpath. I know that smell of spring and the ascomycetes that make it by name. I've isolated their colonies on agar, pink, brown-red, lilac, wrinkled and dusty with spores.
When I reach the stream I crouch down. Pull out a flat rock and watch flathead mayfly nymphs scurry back to the dark face. Look back where I pulled the rock. Glimpse the rainbow flag of a darter frozen in its roofless home.
Under the log where I sit, I know there's an earwig guarding her hoard of pearly eggs. Perfect spheres promising more earwigs, rich brown with shiny black forceps.
My dreamworld is no dream.
ns216.73.217.19da2
and then Add to home screen.