My brown turkey has what looks like a puffball at its base. It is creamy soft. What is it and what can I do about it.
Vince z-5 Central New York

Vince,
oh that might go good in the spaghetti sauce , could not help myself!

That looks like some sort of cocoon or nest of some sorts i would just put on gloves and scrape it off, then perhaps wash off any residue left behind with some bleach solution or something and if thats the original pot it came in i would take plant out of it look at the roots and transplant with new soil.

Tom You may be right. I looked at the example and that is what it looks like. I will google for further info
Thanks
Vince

Martin
I'm not much on spaghetti. How about sauerkraut and weiners
Vince

Vince ,
that meal will work just fine! I took these pictures of my street tree on parkway, i was getting the mail and saw this nest and took pictures. I broke open and its like marshmellow consistensy and a small spider came out not sure if it was inside it or not but after moving it around with a toothpick a bunch of little guys like mites or real smallish spiders was hard to see them all of a sudden were there along with some small eggs i tried to capture with camera. Anyways i thought about painting that spot again as last year i pruned a branch from there but i fix em good now and put that tanglefoot goo there after i eat my sardines and baby clam mix in a bowl with spinkle of sea salt and black pepper, cornbread crackers for scooping !

Martin
I'm going to check into it a little further on google. I would hate to destroy it if it is mantis eggs.
That meal sounds great if I could have a beer to go along with it
Vince

Vince here is a nice site i came across that has lots of pictures.
In my search there were a lot of places that actually sell the eggs .
The pictures are nice, i used to see them on the outside wall of the railroad shanty in the yard where i used to work they would stay there all night long and barely move it seemed.
To me its a prehistoric looking critter and rather unusual, it also seems like they copied it in some of the creature movies.

Martin
That was a neat site. I'm going to leave things alone and monitor it to see what happens. The tree at this point looks healthy. I also have ants and I liked your tangelfoot idea. So I'm going to give it a try.
Vince

Vince,
glad you liked the site.
About ants, here in my immediate area they are abundant it seems as i also hear the neighbors complain about them coming into there house, for me they used to come into the kitchen thru the patio door area. They go into the smallest cracks around where the cement meets the house on the patio , and hence climb my containers to get to the fruit on the fig trees. I spray the cracks and solved the ant problems years ago and have to do so several times each season and it works. The tanglefoot also works excellent for me with the fig trees also.
One day some seasons back i was sitting on cement step out front in my sandels and shorts, we have a small type of pine i shape right there in front and all of a sudden i felt this pain on my legs and feet  at first i thought i was getting bit by some mosquitoes them darn useless critters of nature but no it was some small reddish color ants and they actually hurt, this was my first experience with a creature so small yet painful. Seems like we get those type the large black ants and the small dark ones as well. Least no bears like i have seen on the forum though!

These were smaller than the normal ants and had a reddish hue to them, iv'e had ant on me before but these bit , as for killer bee's hmm i hope they never make it here i have had enough of the regular yellow jackets chasing me.
Twice i ran for my life it seemed first time i was throwing rocks at the wooden fence that had a nest stuck to the middle part of the wood i kept getting bigger rock and then bam i hit it and i was off to the races when i realized they came after me.
Second time i was taking the kids metal swing set down and them buggers were in 1 of the connecting tubes taking getting free rent,when i discconected it again i had to run.
Oh another time i did get stung in the tongue yes the tongue when i was about 19 working in the factory and lunch break i was eating a burger from the roach coach and a yellow jacket landed on it and i bit into burger and it felt like someone stuck me with a needle in my tongue, that was worse case experince, i dont think i can run that fast anymore so.......

Martin\Dan
These are not fire ants. They are small and pesty. We have them in the house for the first time. We also have the lg black. My wife use baking soda and that seems to do the trick.
Vince