August Showers bring...Fairy Circles?

There's not a lot of "news" to pass along.  No snake sightings.  Life has settled into a routine.  This is more about the everyday observances that Neta and I encounter on our (mostly) daily walks when we take a break to get away from "the office".  There is always a new fire ant hill or three to take care of, or some pecan branches that have broken and fallen into the yard.

We usually walk Sammie around the perimeter of the yard once or twice a day.  If we notice something that we haven't before, we usually look it up when we get back inside.  Lately we've been encountering a lot of mushrooms.

I'd always pictured this part of Georgia that we're living in as dry and dusty farmland.  In all of our visits in the last 11 years, over many Christmases, Thanksgivings and summer family reunions, we'd only seen it rain a handful of times.  Since we've moved down here it has rained (showers) about 75% - 80% of the days we've been here.  Some have been quite heavy and flooded the yard, only to see it soak right in in less than an hour.  Others have just been spotty showers, enough to douse any ideas of starting or finishing mowing the lawn.

The last couple of weeks while the rain has slacked off to about 50% of the days, it has brought with it a bumper crop of mushrooms and even a couple of Fairy Circles.  Just a quick look out any of our windows and you can usually spot what looks like a golf ball from any view.

Here's a sampling (I did not look up the specific varieties):

NOTE:  For those of you who aren't aware, clicking on the pictures gives you a full size view.

Looks like a golf ball
from the window

Little Puffballs of some type

A different perspective

A different perspective

And this is the Fairy Ring in the yard beside the house.  There is another one further across the property, but it's not a fresh as this one and starting to turn brown.

A Fairy Ring

It's like Siamese Quintuplets!

And I didn't even get stung by a fire ant while taking this picture.