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...