So..... What Is It?

 On of the things I've discovered about gardening is that you're constantly finding new things to baffle you.  It was OK when Cindy was in charge of the garden; she had the knowledge and resources to know where to find answers to those questions.  I would wander out into the garden, find something weird, like the space-alien Keelbacked Treehoppers from a decade ago, Cindy would figure out what it was, and then I'd write a blog post about it.  

Now that I'm left in charge of things, I have to figure them out for myself.  

So what is this thing?  I've seen these whitish domes in the garden before, usually on wood or, in this case the bark mulch.  They last for a few days, then the top seems to crumble and they gradually deteriorate into a sort of granular dust.  

Dome on Thursday, Aug. 31st.

Two of them appeared in the front yard in the last week.  When holes appeared in the top of each of the domes a few days later, I thought they might be insect egg cases.  

Same Dome on Sunday, Sept. 3rd.

Seeking identification, I posted it to Bug Guide.net.  Several people suggested that it is probably something called Slime Mold, a single cell amoeba that lives on soil.  This one doesn't look like any of the photos I've seen of Slime Mold, but there are at least 900 species of this that exist, so that's the best bet so far.  

I guess I could pack it up and take it in to the County Ag. office and see what they say it is.  If it really is Slime Mold, the kids in the neighborhood will love it.  How cool is that?