Last week I decided to shake things up a bit and change my perspective. It began inside, laying on the floor to grab some shots. Then I ventured outside. Thankfully, where we live, my neighbors can’t easily see me acting like a weirdo, although my dog was a little puzzled. Even in the dead of winter, I was able to start enjoying nature through my lens. I found some lively green moss at the base of a tree.

Then my dog, Jake interrupted my bliss, breathed on my lens, and continued on his way.

While I was cleaning the lens, I spotted something quite interesting a few feet away, a colorful fungus living all over a pile of logs on the edge of our property.

I think they’re beautiful.

After a quick search, I learned that they’re called Turkey Tail fungi, because of the colorful spreading flower. Flower you say? Yes, it’s considered a flower that blooms from the main part of the fungus that grows inside of the bark.

What’s amazing is that, a little over a week ago, these were all covered under 7″ of snow and ice, and now they look as if they’ve never been touched.

I crawled over and around the pile, ripping my jeans on some barbed wire in the process, to check out the colorful spread.

This is what I do.

And I do it all to share with you, my peeps.

Crazy growing things, these fungi.

So colorful.

Oranges and greens…

Lovely grays. Whites. Browns.

Even pinkish.

They remind me of undersea coral. The formations are very similar in a lot of ways.

And to think they’ve been in my yard the whole time, practically right under my nose.

And to think I’d have missed this interesting little field trip (even though I did rip my jeans) if I had stayed inside, and not changed my perspective.

Now that I know they’re out there, it’s kinda fun to imagine (when I’m not laying on the forest floor, ripping my jeans) little gnomes, or whatever creatures hang out with fungi, chilling out with these flowery tails.

What have you discovered lately right under your nose?