lots of rot

Lately on our morning walks, the boys have really been into finding fungi and other detritus-forming things (evidence of insects, woodpecker holes, etc) that help dead trees rot. They comment on how the mushrooms, lichens, and other processes are 'eating' the decaying tree and turning it back into fertile earth. I find their fascination with this interesting, given that our focus in our nature stories has been on cycles (water cycle, seasonal cycle, etc), yet we've not actually read a nature story about this particular cycle (although there is an Enki nature story about mushrooms which we'll read again in the coming week, just because it jives so well with what they are seeing in the woods right now). I will probably write a story for them about the decay cycle, I'm sure it would be quite well-received!

In any case, enjoy some photos of all the good rot that we found around the pond on our walk yesterday morning! (And feel thankful that I chose NOT to take a photo of the dead turtle Kiri found and insisted on carrying with her for half the walk...that's a whole different kind of rot we really didn't need documented here....)