January is not mushroom season in Chicago, though things seem to be changing in that respect. Winter, it would seem comes later in the year. Snow is no longer in the habit of falling shortly after Thanksgiving. A white Christmas is now something seen only in movies with lavish dance numbers and quite a bit of singing and retina-melting Technicolor® brilliance. We had something of a gray, moderately slushy Christmas. Nice, but nowhere near white, unless you consider white to be just a paler shade of gray. As a result of that, the new year started off with a rather moist disposition. Temperatures spiked, briefly, and for a day or two, it felt like spring…frighteningly so. In Chicago, warm weather generally falls just before the onset of a blizzard. It would seem that this season’s first Chicago blizzard was averted. For a short time. We’ll have until late March to see if a blizzard actually comes this way. Because of both temperature and moisture, Chicago’s fungus population got an early start on growth for this year. Nearly every available tree wears a coat of lichen growth, and I wonder just how much of any given fungus-component of any given lichen is responsible for such…um… coverage. Because of the moisture we’ve been having (though it has solidified into ice now) we’ve gotten a surprising number of mushrooms. Small ones. Mysterious ones. I spotted these two mushrooms growing (amid lichens) on a tree near the Chicago River. As is my day-off custom, I spent time with Corey. As is our shared habit, we photographed things. Lots of things, and I nabbed shots of a little, fungal surprise. The mushrooms in question are positively tiny. The diameter of each cap matches the diameter of a lower-case “o” using size 10 Times New Roman font (for those who care for such details) and the stems of such shrooms are mere threads, as I judged them. I captured as many shots of this fungal duo as I could, but not many of them came out. I’ve decided to post the best of them here. A chill has descended over Chicago, now…our slush has frozen into oddly crystalline city-plaque, and I’m not sure of the fate of these two ‘shrooms. I suspect that they’ve yielded spore, but I won’t really know that until I can see more little ‘shrooms, climbing a maple tree on the bank of the Chicago River. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week/weekend.