Fuligo Septica.

 Behold, Fuligo Septica, in all it's glory...at least I'm pretty sure it is.

We had noticed what looked like paper that had gotten wet on a patch of our neighbor's dirt. I literally thought it was just paper that had been left out in the rain two weeks ago and had gotten soggy and gross. Please don't ask why that wouldn't surprise me, but it totally doesn't. 
My grandmother, though, was concerned, so my old friend Google and I did some sleuthing. I really didn't know what to start searching for so I started with stuff like "white moldy thing on dirt"..."white dirt mold"..."white garden mold". After hopping through the various results I decided that this guy is the most likely culprit. You can read about it HERE. 
It's a slime mold; how gross is that? Super gross, that's what. What's even gnarlier is that the non scientific name is Dog Vomit Slime Mold...as the above article from 1999 explains. It doesn't seem to be too pervasive, though, so we're not worried or anything. I just don't like the way it creeps over the brick border...kind of like it's alive...which I guess it is. 

In other random news, have y'all noticed that Halloween seems to be taking over the home decorating market, encroaching upon the traditional yule-tide hold on said endeavor? I did an informal study yesterday. On my five mile run, at about mile 1.5 actually, I started counting houses that have spooky accoutrement. I then gave up after I reached 40-something. I hadn't even reached mile four. It's not that I don't enjoy the day of witches {as it translates to in Spanish}. I actually love it because it's fun and low commitment. But that's a lot of orange lights, yo!!! 
Granted, every house wasn't all-out decked out. I counted anything from a lone little plastic pumpkin in a window to those huge blow up contraptions draped in orange and purple lights. I'm just...interested; this seems like a fairly new phenomena and I'm curious...is this unique to suburban San Jose? Is this holiday growing in popularity? If so, why? Might it be because of the same reasons that I enjoy this day? 
No matter what...do you have plans for the big day? Where does your decorating style fall - carved pumpkins the week of, all out haunted hootenannies or nary a squash in sight?
This year, our main method of decorating has, unfortunately, been dog vomit slime mold and hopefully in the next week we'll get around to something more, ahem, traditional.
xoxo, natty ♥