On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 16:38:08 GMT, "mobiledan"
wrote:

Anybody have an idea what this is, or how to get rid of it?

They are puff balls which is a common name of the fruiting body of
some forms of fungi. The sack contains spores (seeds) of the fungus
and when it dries, the upper skin breaks open exposing the dusty spore
mass. Some blow away but mostly they wait for a good hard rain and
the raindrops hitting the mass really knocks them out and some are
carried off in the wind and washed into the soil that way.

So what you are seeing is only the final appearance of a larger
underground organism that would look like a mass of fine roots. These
are in general beneficial and there is no need to get rid of them.
The fruiting bodies can be eaten while still white to cream colored.

Many of these Gastromycets (stomach fungi) are quite strange. Another
one is called Earth-Stars, I think. When the upper skin splits it
opens star-shaped exposing several larger spores and it looks like a
birds nest. Each spore is attached by a filament and when a rain drop
falls into the bowl shaped "nest" the spore is thrown outward -
attached by the filament, I guess so it does not get too far.

Rusty Mase