This has been an exceptionally warm and dry summer and fall, affecting everything in the forests, fields, and wetlands. Fall colors have been rather drab this year. Wetlands are drying up. Many trees began dropping their leaves in August.
September and October are times when the forests are full of colorful fungi. I always look forward to going out and looking for mushrooms. But this year mushrooms of any kind are far and few between. A few puffballs have popped up, and some Amanitas tried to grow before succumbing to the heat.
This slideshow showcases some of the colorful fungi that should be here, but for lack of rain, are not.
Not Very Far Away 
We have the same thing going on here. In a normal year I would have posted two or three fungi and slime mold posts by now.
You’ve gotten some nice shots of them which as you know isn’t as easy as it sounds.
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Thanks! I spend a lot of time with the camera. Plenty of dud shots though!
I was also looking for slime molds. Just too dry for them. Now it is too cold. On Sunday it was 90 and then we dropped to 30.
We’ve had lower than normal rainfall for a few years now. Even winters have less snow than normal and are warmer. 2020/2021 winter had almost no snow which was bad for a lot of the forest herbs. Many dried out but fortunately they’ve come back from their roots.
2022/2023 we had two feet of wet snow in three days and then almost nothing for the rest of the winter.
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There sounds a lot like here. I helped a friend put up a fence and when we dug 3 feet down for the posts it was as dry as dust at the bottom of the holes.
We had 26 degrees here this morning.
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That is dry. I worry about wildfires this fall if we don’t get any early snow or some rain.
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