Meghann Pie
LightNews LightNews
banner
meghannpie.bsky.social
Meghann Pie
@meghannpie.bsky.social
480 followers 1.2K following 530 posts
artist, ally, optimist, activist, bookworm, environmentalist, humanist, herbalist, golden rule follower, cook, landscaper and plant steward, live-music addict, ocean swimmer, fungi-whisperer and forager.
Posts Replies Media Videos
meghannpie.bsky.social
meeeee toooooooo

#FungiFriends #Fungi #Dye
photo of a substantial Dyers polypore, Phaeolus schweinitzii, from Mendocino County. This large flat hard fungi has large overlapping brown shelves with golden yellow edges about 1/2" from edge in to the rich and velvety chocolate brown cap. A white person's left hand shows on the bottom left edge of the fungi, touching the underside edge of the cap, for scale. The entire structure is about 6 hands worth (lol) and the background is a variety of green plants of the redwood understory.
November 23, 2025 at 5:14 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
extremely large (8" across) and lacunalicious Lactarius deliciosus looking all fancy for the fall.

#FungiFriends #fungi
my color photograph of a large Lactarius deliciosus mushroom fruiting body, erupting out of the deep brown redwood duff in Mendocino County, CA. This beautiful orange mushroom has a splotchy stipe with a geometric orange tiling pattern on a cream background. The cap is deeply funnel shaped and filled with rain water and bits of brown leaf litter. The edge of the rich golden cap has deeper orange patterning but none of the deep emerald green coloration that this species is often known for.
November 23, 2025 at 4:36 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
ABSOLUTE BEAST of a Hypomyces lactifluorum! This parasitic (on Russula or Lactarius) Lobster Mushroom was bigger than my head! Special thank you to MSSF, JDSF and the Mendocino Woodlands for the opportunity to learn more about our fungal world.

#FungiFriends #lobster #fungi
close up color photograph of a giant Hypomyces lactifluorum, a lobster mushroom. It is a massive head-sized parasitic fungi with intense orange coloration. it is shown in someone's left hand, where you can just see their fingers below it for scale. cropped in the background is another person and a dirty hardwood floor and some rectangular windows in a door.
November 19, 2025 at 6:12 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
you're golden ~

#FungiFriends #JGB #FunkyForagers
November 9, 2025 at 4:33 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
I guess it's (long past) time to ditch the virtual web we're all caught in and just live in the world by being present with everyone and everything tangible and analog.
Find me in the woods!
Heavenly thick mossy forest panorama with lots of trees and ferns and emerald green lushness.
November 3, 2025 at 3:24 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
Please come to the MSSF Fungi Fair Dec 7, 2025

It's so fun!

#FungiFriends #FunkyForagers #Mycology #Fungi #Mushrooms #SanFrancisco #Foray
QR code for the 53rd Annual Mycological Society of San Francisco Fungus Fair coming up on Sunday December 7th, 2025. Please come! It's full of Identification tables of fungi from all over the Bay Area (and the state,) wonderful speakers, inspiring classes and art, vendors, food, and more! Poster for the 53rd Annual Mycological Society of San Francisco Fungus Fair coming up on Sunday December 7th, 2025. It is a green-grey background with a central drawing of a creative mishmash of various mushrooms including chanterelles, inky caps and purple coral mushrooms, a BART train, windmill, some clouds, the Golden Gate Bridge, some green moss, and a spotted banana slug Please come! Magical displays of fungi on identification tables, with samples from all over the Bay Area (and the state,) wonderful speakers, inspiring classes and art, vendors, food, and more! El Camino High School, 1320 Mission Rd South SF across from BART. Speakers: Chad Hyatt, Daniel Winkler, Kathi Meier, David Arora, Mai Lovaas, Reggie Harris, Tomas Garrett, Christopher Hobbs. Craft Zone, Vending and Workshops with Jack Laws, JR Blair, Eleana Hsu, and Alan Rockefeller.
October 17, 2025 at 4:12 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
algaescape with western sandpipers
horizontal abstract color image of bright deep yellow algae mats floating on leveed salt ponds on a clear day, reflecting blue skies in openings in the yellow mats. small birds dot the yellow surface on the distant upper 1/4 of the photo.
October 7, 2025 at 1:56 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
ooh! I was literally surrounded by Quercus galls last weekend ~ each Oak seemed to have a different kind, and the ground under each tree was littered with the ball shaped ones, or with leaves covered in the pyramidal ones!
green furry Oak gall the size of a pea, sitting on the back central vein of a yellowed Quercus leaf. The background is out of focus leaf litter and trail dirt. 3 bright red pyramidal or cone-shaped galls on the back side of a green oak leaf (possibly a CA Black Oak, Quercus kelloggii). The gall on the far right is most mature, darkest red in color, and the most in focus in this photo. The background is rocky concrete that was made to look like a wooden fence beam. Four pyramidal or cone hat shaped Oak galls that are pale beige with pink tint. They are on the back side of a Quercus leaf, possibly Q. lobata)
September 29, 2025 at 11:58 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
in Bergamo, you can rub the three bronze testicles on the coat of arms adorning the funerary chapel of Bartolomeo Colleoni (the Cappella Colleoni)

I'll admit it, I rubbed one... uhhhh errr all three of them.
Bronze angel detail on the top of the elaborate Renaissance gate surrounding the Cappella Colleoni in the Città Alta in Bergamo, Italy. The angel is kneeling and holding up a coat of arms plaque emballzoned with 3 testicles, which kind of look like 3 commas. These stylized testes are shiny bronze from people rubbing them (for luck?) while the rest of the gate's metal work is black but covered in beautiful verdigris deposits. I have read that the tri-orchis coat of arms precedes the date of the chapel by at least several hundred years. In the out of focus background are the arched carved wooden doors to this Bartolomeo Colleoni funerary chapel built in 1486, with the surrounding wall being made of highly detailed carved and adorned pale cream and grey marble. There are various additional testicular coats of arms on both the gate top (in bronze) and in marble on the walls of the building. That's a lotta balls.
September 2, 2025 at 12:29 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
CALIF: IF YOU GET THIS MAILER FROM 'PROTECT THE VOTERS FIRST ACT' IT IS MORE MAGA LIES.

The League Of Women Voters does NOT endorse this
despite being quoted on the front of this mailer.
lwvc.org/lwvc-not-aff...

Vote YES in the upcoming special election!
Don't be fooled by more LIES from the GOP!
FASCIST MAILER SENT TO CALIFORNIANS ABOUT THE UPCOMING SPECIAL ELECTIONS TO REDISTRICT CALIFORNIA (SO THAT MAGA CANNOT CONTINUE TO EMPOWER THEMSELVES WITH MANIPULATED VOTING REDISTRICTING IN RED STATES.) MAKE SURE THAT CALIFORNIA MAKES NEW MAPS FOR REDISTRICTING SO THAT WE CAN PLAY BY THE SAME RULES AND WITH THE SAME LOGIC USED BY THE FASCISTS, TO THWART THEIR FASCIST TAKEOVER OF THESE UNITED STATES. PLEASE VOTE YES YES YES YES YES ON THIS UPCOMING SPECIAL ELECTION. THIS FLIER QUOTES GLORIA HOO FROM THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS AND MAKES IT SEEM LIKE THEY ARE AGAINST THIS REDISTRICTING, BUT THEY ARE 100% IN SUPPORT OF IT: https://lwvc.org/lwvc-not-affiliated-redistricting-mailer/ PLEASE DO NOT FALL FOR THE LIES AND MANIPULATION! VOTE YES!
August 22, 2025 at 8:23 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
Beauty break!
Don't forget to breathe 💙
Aerial photo of the vast British Columbia island landscape showing blue waters of the Salish Sea and various heavily wooded rocky islands in the foreground and background. there are a few perfect puffy white clouds in the background over the mountains. Two streaks across the upper horizon appeared to be contrails from jets, but are actually distortion from the curved window I was photographing through. The perspective is from a low-altitude float plane.
August 5, 2025 at 1:15 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
Dreamy BC
Stunningly gorgeous and peaceful landscape photo taken from a beach walk along Smelt Bay on Cortes Island in BC. The foreground shows wet sand, rocks, shells, large boulders and driftwood trees...and off in the distance is crystal clear blue refreshing water to swim in, tall evergreen trees to look for bald eagles, and in the exquisite far distance, snow capped mountains on other islands. Paradise!
July 30, 2025 at 6:56 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
these are such spectacular wildflowers!

here's one showing off in the dry Las Trampas Regional Wilderness from early this summer (Calichortus argillosus, Clay Mariposa Lily, Contra Costa County, CA, USA)

(had to delete, edit and repost since I had the incorrect Latin)
color photo from ground level looking up at the tulip cup shaped Calochortus argillosus flower on a vertical stem. The background sky is bright true blue and there are out of focus green oaks in the background. The foreground is an assortment of dry summer grasses, in and out of focus, and in the center stands the solitary burgundy-speckled and yellow-painted cup of this fantastic wildflower. Calochortus might just be my favorite!
July 27, 2025 at 12:00 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
anyone care to follow me into the emerald landscape?
💚
My color panoramic photo from the thick Douglas Fir forest of the Palomarin Ridge of the glorious Point Reyes National Seashore, located on the Pacific Coast of California. The scene is primarily in glorious emerald greens of ferns on a shady slope to the left in front of an Oak-shaped Bay Tree, with silver ferns lit up in the distant right. A very overgrown and underused (ie PERFECT) grassy single-track trail leads from the right foreground straight off into the distance, with thickets of tall trees in the background allowing a bit of blue sky and patchy fog to show through in bits throughout the top half of the photo. A large twisted dark trunk of another Bay off to the upper right justs into the photo with several entwined branches.
June 30, 2025 at 9:54 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
FUCK ICE

www.cato.org/blog/65-peop...
June 21, 2025 at 4:30 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
hiking in this golden state wilderness is good for my soul
color photo of a hand (3 fingers) behind one spiky fruit of Ribes californicum, with dried flower remains hanging from the tip of the fruit. The deep magenta berry is transparent in the sun and shows darker almost black spots inside the fruit, which are its seeds. The light golden brown stem hangs vertically on the left side of the photo, with bright green lobed leaves, some of which are tinged with pink or golden brown. Color photo under the shady canopy of an enormous black walnut tree on a slope covered in dry CA grasses. There are many horizontal branches and this tree canopy easily covered 100 square feet. It was cool and lovely underneath this tree, compared to the blazing hot 90˚ day out in the sun beyond it. Color photo of a side view of a stunning Mariposa Lily (Calochortus venustus, I believe) surrounded by golden-colored dry grasses with spiky seed heads, with a soft-focus background of deep emerald oak trees to the distant sides and deep blue skies beyond. The cup-shaped solitary flower has incredible burgundy speckles and a golden yellow feather-like pattern. They are known to have outrageous colors inside the cups, but I'm a fan of their spectacular exteriors too! Perfect (tho hazy) California landscape with dry golden weeds in the foreground, with a trail cut from the bottom edge of the scene to the distant right. The trail cuts across the top of a ridge, surrounded by canyons of deep olive and bright green shrubs and oaks, with distant low hills in the far background. The sky is a beautiful clear blue, with not a cloud in sight. It's almost to hot out to hike here already! Yay summer in CA!
June 16, 2025 at 10:01 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
interesting! I just saw a whole bunch of Plantago lanceolata (narrow-leaf plantain) that had almost identical fat stems as well. In Point Reyes National Seashore.
color photo of in situ bright green Plantago lanceolata showing unusual swollen stems. possibly a gall of some kind? There is some dried grass and dried grass seed heads, and a random yellow flower in the photo as well. Point Reyes National Seashore, lower Muddy Hollow trail.
June 16, 2025 at 3:16 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
I love you, Point Reyes National Seashore.
horizontal black and white landscape photo of part of Drake's Estero taken from the lower Muddy Hollow trail in Point Reyes National Seashore, showing foggy cloud cover with beams of light slightly coming through layers of sky. In the distance are various mesa/prominences, including Drake's Head. Sunlight lights up the snaky waterway in the mid ground, and the foreground marsh area is almost black.
June 13, 2025 at 4:57 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
Lattice stinkhorn! Clathrus rubber. First time for me seeing/smelling (!) this unusual fly-attractant fungus.
photo of a crimson red lattice/basket-shaped fungus a little larger than the size of a tennis ball. It has stinky black blobs in the interior structures that smell like death and flies that are attracted to the smell take away spores to help the fungus reproduce. It is erupting from the ground of mulched wood chips and dried redwood leaves. there is one green blade of grass poking thru the brown duff to the right lower corner of the photo.
June 6, 2025 at 3:33 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
guess which one of us is from England and which is from California:

😂

#food 🍜 #vegetables
lunch break in the wilderness: a vertically-oriented photo of a closeup of 2 sandwiches held in caucasian hands, with the denim jeans of one person showing in the background, along with some dirt ground. In the extreme foreground, there is a lovely and delicious-looking toasted seeded sourdough sandwich half, filled to bursting with fresh tomato, vegan mayo, turkey pastrami, avocado, sprouts, and blue, yellow and orange flower petals. Behind that mouth-watering feast is a very boring and sad, but mostly eaten sandwich composed of some dry-ass chicken leftovers with salt and abundant mayonnaise on white sourdough bread. that damn sandwich couldn't BE any whiter lol
May 28, 2025 at 11:25 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
natural Happo-Nibari in the wilderness.
mossy exuberance on the roots of Umbellularia californica.

#bonsai (not bonsai)
horizontally-oriented color photo of a massive multi(8?!)-trunked CA bay tree from about 20 feet high down to the extensive lush green moss-covered nebari (the Japanese term for the spread of the root system in all directions.) There is a slight slope to a creek from the upper left to the lower right, with dry brown ground everywhere. In the background are several other bay trees and some oaks as well. If you look closely, there is the toe of a recent landslide in the creek path to the left of the main focus of this big tree's gorgeous root crown. The slide toe looked like rough piles of clay piled up much higher than the creek bed, and had vertically displaced a weird white PVC pipe in the Las Trampas Regional Wilderness.
May 28, 2025 at 10:22 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
ooh looks kinda like a Laetiporus cincinnatus. I've found its cousin, L. sulphureous near water as well!
7 layers of Laetiporus sulfureus growing from the base of a dead scar in an unknown tree along a reservoir. the photo is taken from the perspective of a person in the front seat of a canoe, and their pale caucasian right leg and foot come out of the foreground at the bottom, pointing towards the stacked golden orange fungus shelves. A sliver of a green canoe paddle is seen in the bottom left corner, and the right side shows some broken concrete in and at the water's edge. The water is dark, almost green-black. The tree trunk is pale creamy warm gray and shows various cracks, and a large scar where the mushroom fruiting body is erupting.
May 27, 2025 at 2:40 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
ooh can I please add the fabulous Lee Robinsong to your curvaceous collection?

www.leerobinsong.ca/fine-arts-sh...
circular work of art by Lee Robinsong, called "Echoes." a blue sky with lush forest along the edges, and the distant mountains and clouds showing in the upper right. The low tide stony glass of the island make a lovely brown and blue swirled donut shape.
May 9, 2025 at 10:57 PM
meghannpie.bsky.social
thank you, Mexico morning
photograph of a cloudy sunrise over the Sea of Cortez, taken from a panga on the water and showing the horizon line about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom with a sliver of Isla Carmen in silhouette off to the right. The sky is dramatic blue with grey and peach spots of clouds all over the sky, and golden apricot sunlight reflecting off the calm water. Mexico is a beautiful country.
May 6, 2025 at 2:41 AM
meghannpie.bsky.social
Feeling very prickly today.
Gunnera manicata leaf unfurling. Lovely tight curl showing the underside of a thoroughly spiky green leaf and stem. Out of focus background shows burgundy inflorescence with hundreds of individual flowers and a wash of greens.
April 19, 2025 at 3:28 PM