Shocking Garden Finds: I Swear it is True!

In no way do I want to offend anyone with this post. So continue at your own risk and you won't offend me if you decide to pass on this post!

I love the spring and all the surprises that come with gardening in the springtime. I can't wait to see what plants survived the winter, what plants or flowers came back on their own and I love to see if any of my flowers from the summers past have reseeded themselves and promise more color in my flower beds.

Usually, I am not too surprised by my findings. But one day last week, when I was making my rounds looking at my flowerbeds can you imagine my surprise when I found this?

I swear, it is true! This was growing in between my two yellow and orange Lantana and some clover that came up this spring. Now tell me....have you ever seen anything like this? I certainly have not!

See, it was growing right out of the ground. I happened to be walking around my yard with my 79 year old aunt, and you can just imagine my embarrassment at this vulgar looking thing that just appeared out of no where, standing straight up out of the earth.

When Steve got home, I quickly pointed it out to him and well, for the sake of my "G" rated blog, we will just say he looked at me very questionably.

Thank goodness, he dug it up with the shovel and tossed it over the back fence. How disgusting. Truly. Sinful. Really. And don't tell me to get my head out of the gutter, because you would have to be blind not to get my point. And we both know...you are not!
I thought about doing a google search on this to find out what it was, but quickly thought better of it....after all, just what would one put in the search engine? "Wiener fungus", "red mushroom head" or what about "shaft fungus". All I do know is the outside looked and appeared to have the texture of a very dense sponge, while the inside was hollow. Don't worry, I did not touch it with my hands, simply because I did not know what it was and well....you just never know!

Seriously, I was afraid of what might pull up in a google search. So I guess I will never know unless some wise gardener knows what this is or someone with more nerve than myself wants to google this one. And how in the heck do I keep something like this from coming up again in my flowerbeds?

I think I will try and not look for too many surprises in my gardens for a while...this one just about did it for me!
I never knew Mother Nature could be so...well...not so lady like.