After a night of fireworks, and lots and lots of rain, I awoke to find crazy hairy mold growing outside my garage door. It was beautiful and fluffy, and as white as snow.

My mind raced with thoughts of outlandish ideas of environmental contamination from a mix of fireworks to air contaminants or worse, that had been raining down and then combining. I was definitely concerned.

I took pictures and then asked my daughter with her very expensive overpriced degree in biology to research what was growing on the concrete and she said it was simply salt. I was relieved and confused. But after some research on the internet, and so many other curious people with similar images to mine, the correlated evidence did indeed prove it was a type of salt or efflorescence.

WIKIPEDIA SAYS ... In chemistry, efflorescence (which means "to flower out" in French) is the migration of a salt to the surface of a porous material, where it forms a coating. The essential process involves the dissolving of an internally held salt in water, or occasionally in another solvent. The water, with the salt now held in solution, migrates to the surface, then evaporates, leaving a coating of the salt.

Absolutely fascinating!!! Love learning cool new things.

After knowing it was safe, I became fascinated at how beautiful the crystalline structures appeared. I wish I had taken more pictures or even video. Pouring water on it made it dissolve really quickly, as if it were never there.

Mother Nature is full of surprises, I hope you find the beauty in the surprise.

Aloha,

Mai