The hidden life beneath our feet...

Yesterday morning, after a cool night and a little rain, I took a walk through the farm and found these fascinating little mushrooms popping up in several of the herb planters.

I love moments like this because they remind me how much is happening around us that we never see.

What we call a mushroom is really only the visible fruiting body of a much larger fungus. Beneath the soil and mulch can be fine threadlike structures called mycelium, quietly growing through the organic matter around them.

Some fungi are decomposers, helping break down leaves, wood and other plant material and returning those nutrients to the soil. Others form close relationships with plant roots, helping plants access water and nutrients while receiving sugars from the plants in return.

All of this can be happening beneath our feet while we walk right over it without knowing.

There is an entire community in healthy soil—roots, fungi, bacteria, insects and countless other tiny lives—each doing its part in the cycle of growing, dying, breaking down and becoming something new.

And then, after just the right combination of moisture and temperature, a few little mushrooms appear above the surface and give us a glimpse of that hidden world.

I think that may have been my favorite part of finding them.

They weren’t really something that suddenly arrived overnight. They were evidence of something that had been quietly happening all along.

The farm gives me so many reminders like this: there is always more going on than what we can see.

Sometimes we just get lucky enough to catch a little piece of it.