This morning my son wanted to go outside, so I took him out to go look at the pepper plants. To my surprise we found some mushrooms growing. I live in the Southern California desert so to find mushrooms is extremely rare. Actually I've been trying to grow mushrooms indoors for the last 2 years and had very poor luck with them. The only success I had was oyster mushrooms grown in coffee grounds and then put on the sterilized straw. It ended up being quite a bit of work for a little bit of mushrooms. I didn't think it was really worth my time.
So when I saw these I was quite surprised. I have never seen a wild mushroom on my property in the last 4 years.
Coprinus Aqueous or inky cap mushrooms
Now normally I don't like to pick them. Instead I would rather them drop their spores and continue growing. However I couldn't pass on this learning opportunity for my son and daughter. They had a chance to see their first Inky cap mushroom. They learned about spores instead of seeds. I had a chance to explain the life cycle because the inky cap dies so quickly. Finally they also had a chance to learn about decomposition and the benefits of mushrooms.
Hopefully there will be more!