mushroom mania

I was so excited by all things mycological after the workshop that I headed out into the woods near Scout Mountain the next weekend to forage for myself.  I beamed with pride when I met an elderly couple on the path carrying a giant white mushroom, who asked me if I might be able to identify it for them.  Not only was I able to tell them (trying to keep the envy out of my voice) that they had found a very large pine mushroom, but I was even able to advise them as to the best way to cook it.  The satisfaction of learning something new truly comes when you get to impart it to someone else, and is even greater when that information leads to dinner.  Thinking there must be more where that came from (strangely inapplicable when it comes to mushrooms) I moseyed about looking for pines for a while but there were no more that I could find.  What I did find however was a perfect fairy-house amanita muscaria (above) and what I believe should be called a parasol mushroom (below), although I have no idea what it is actually named. Oh, and a handful of lobsters that I fried up for dinner.  I'm hooked.

delicious chanterelle, lobster and cauliflower mushrooms

mushroom field trip, part 2

One of the coolest things about the workshop Brigid gave after the field trip was her talk about using mushrooms for dying.  The richness of the colours she had made from, let's face it, mainly brown fungi, was amazing to me and piqued my (barely) latent home-dying obsession all over again.  I have collected a number of the species shown here on the table and have them in my freezer, just waiting for a skein of raw wool and the right mood.

mushroom workshop with Brigid Weiler

Mushrooms collected on the field trip

Mushrooms from my bucket, spread out on the sorting table

Laccaria amethystina

Close up of Laccaria amethystina

Amanita muscaria, the hallucinogenic mushroom usually assumed to be the one ingested by Alice.  

You can see why.

"Ghost" mushrooms - completely transparent and beautiful in a way this photo cannot capture.

harvest season

raccoons raid the walnuts

A gang of these brazen bandits discovered my walnut trees on the EXACT SAME DAY that I finally decided to harvest the fallen nuts. Hmmff - four of them ganged up on me and staked their claim but my ability to shout and wave my arms won out in the end (if only all life's battles were so easily solved). I let them get a belly-full first though; I figure everyone deserves a few walnuts. Including the crows, who also let their displeasure be known when I started gathering with my bucket (it really is a jungle out here). They soon realised that I was doing them a favour by standing on the fruit and cracking the hulls to see which nuts were viable, saving them a lot of time and labour. Scary smart birds.

hike up scout mountain

bears in the garden...

That last one is of Mama Bear when she finally noticed me standing out on the deck, clicking away and trying not to giggle as Baby Bear1 (definitely the first born, that's him standing up in the second shot) climbed apple trees and tried to get in the hammock. I don't think she was too pleased that all the apples had been gathered the day before to avoid tempting them (I know this is good practice but it was kind of sad, like throwing your slightly snarly but well-meaning room-mate's favourite dessert out of the fridge), anyway, I never saw them again. But for one glorious afternoon, the garden was full of bears.

deer in the driveway...