Fungus amungus

This has been a good year for fungus at Lalor Enterprises Inc. There is fungus growing in the loungeroom, on the washing line, and in my study, and I even meant for that last one to happen. (We'll get to that in a moment.) The fungal colony in the loungeroom is having a little party, unfortunately, at the expense of the bacterial colony I had previously nurtured into bloom on top of some fresh, mid-to-late autumn cheese. The washing line fungus opportunistically grew on a cheesecloth I had previously used for sparging ale wort, and while I admired its resilience and parsimonious commitment to economic efficiencies in this time of financial crisis, I popped it in the washing machine straight away so I could hopefully get rid of it.

But as for my study and the fungus in it, however - that was entirely deliberate. (The fungus at least; I don't know how the study got there, though.) I found myself enummerating all the colonies in my study to Mum on the weekend: the ginger beer plant, the three boxes of pearl oyster mushrooms, the box of Portobello mushroom spores, another box of mushroom spores (the name of which escapes me at the moment), a fermenting English brown ale, a Fejoia wine, and a mead. I think that's about all. (At the time I spoke to Mum I was also proud to be able to mention the little jar of cheese culture (then significantly less cultured than it is now) sitting by the heater. That one was bacterial, though, so it didn't count).

Beer fungus, wine fungus, mushroom fungus. That's quite a lot of fungus. Some day hopefully I'll be able to train the fungus to do rudimentary household tasks like cleaning the dishes or scrubbing the floor, but that's in the future. I have to work on my fermentation and culturing techniques between now and then. In the meantime, I'm pretty pleased with the little colony I have around me at the moment. Fungus anyone?