Faerie Tables

Day 4: Yesterday's mission to Nisqually State Park gave me a chance to check on the status of the Amanita muscarias I'd observed a week or so ago. Many of them had been close to the end of their cycles at the time, and of course those have deteriorated even further. However, some of the more viable fungi have now spread their caps in the classic "toadstool" shape. Can't you just imagine a toad or frog perched on top of one of these? Or maybe sitting underneath it? Or maybe your fancies run in the same direction as mine to think of these as "faerie tables," especially when they are laid with such homey checkered "tablecloths." Logic insists that faeries, therefore, must have digestive systems which can process the poisonous alkaloids contained in these storybook 'shrooms, or maybe that's why there are so few sightings of the fair folk these days.