My lawn has an erection

I'll be the first to admit, I have the hottest wife on the block. What's more, within the view of my home office, I haven't seen anything so arousing as what I can find inside. That said, there must be something going on around this place, because my lawn has wood. And I'm not talking about the sweetgum tree.

But, wait...yes, let's talk about the sweetgum tree. In fact, before I get all salacious on you, let's talk about the yard as a whole. Despite the fact I really don't like my property that much, there are some things about it that are endearing.

For instance, my wife is really a terrible keeper of flowers and plants. She loves them, as I do, but her green thumb is more of an attraction for the Irish than it is for the lawn and garden department. Still, she's done better this year and created a few beds that are quite pretty.





Beyond the old lady's ability to keep things alive for the duration of a South Carolina summer are the little eccentricities. For me, it's the little evergreen tree that's been growing under the big sweetgum for the past five years. It started as no more than a wild sprout that I refused to mow down. Now, it's grown to sapling size and it's captured a special little piece of my heart. I can't help but love it. I also can't help but wonder what kind of problems it's going to cause for the huge sweetgum. It has to be like a boil on the root system of the tree I love to hate (sweetgums drop spikey balls on the ground in the fall and break pretty easily under the weight of an ice storm).





Then there's the giant weed that looks like it is a real plant. It's not. It looks like a fern. It's not. It sprouted up last year between two hibiscous bushes. I chopped it down once. While I was gone this summer, it came back. I sort of like it. For a weed, anyway.



All of these things I can stomach and enjoy on my own time. Today, however, I noticed my lawn had a woody. I was doing some work at my computer and looked out the second floor window. That's where I saw the disgusing display. It was below the white oak and it was dirtier than anything I've seen on Cinemax.



Obviously, it is some sort of mushroom. I brief web search makes me believe it might be something called a stinkhorn (a name that would explain why I puked in my mouth a little bit while taking the above picture). That said, most of the stinkhorns I've seen online have looked a little more like a...well, a dog's penis.

So, for now, I've convinced myself that my lawn is hot for the lawn next door, a finely manicured, irrigated, and green carpet of suburban sexiness. My only worry will be if my wife decides to start spending more time "working outside."