It seems a little early for these gargantuan mushrooms to have begun appearing again, but Regie and I saw this perfect specimen on the woodland trail at Biltmore in early September before I left for California.

On another rather toasty day, we stopped mid-hike with the boys for a little rest in the shade of a tree on the estate.

The photo below probably will only make sense if you click it and blow it up to full size to look. There are two finches each perched on top of the remains of these gigantic daisy-like flowers that come up every summer in my side yard. They apparently really like the seeds because there were dozens of them on the flowers for days after the petals fell and the centers were pretty dry.