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Friday, September 12, 2014

Mushrooms are our Friends

While I have been hot on the trail of edible fall mushrooms, my luck has not been with me. There has been wild talk of Chickens of the Woods being out there but lordy be,  they have not been in the woods I have been in . No Hens, no Chanterelles, no Oysters, nothing. I have been wondering home like a wet dog unable to find a gut pile.

The upside is the forest floor is being penetrated with other fungus of all sorts. It is a fungal holiday out there, fit for any itinerant mycologist. Why, there are fungi on fungi, if you will. The moisture has brought out all the mycelium of the world and forced them to consider reproduction and thus, the fantastic fruiting bodies we all admire.

I have a couple of well-positioned oak logs out back that have been giving me a few Shitakes but those wooden breeding grounds have grown old, like me, and are not reproducing all that much. Hell, they are not even trying. I at least still try. It may not be pretty, still----

At one point in the deep dark forest floor, I looked down and there was this brownish toadstool that looked very much like my Shitakes but on picking and flipping over, there was those little pores that put it firmly in the Polyporaceae and not in the gill fungus family. What a shame.



Oh ya, there was a smattering of puffballs but I never had a positive experience eating them. Too bland and the only real flavor came from the garlic and butter. They are nothing but a platform, one that is too often penetrated by worms. They are best used, I have concluded, for stepping on at which point they give a great puff of brown smoke, spores I would suppose.


Here and there the dead trees are invaded by the bracket fungus and while they seem to be able of working as a table for forest animals, or maybe a launching pad for raptors, I have yet to find a use for them. Can't smoke them, can't eat them but they might make fire wood---then not everything has to have a human use.


I did like the two sentinels that showed up in my wood shed. There in the darkened corner were these two just taking over in a quiet way. They had found a nitch, unchallenged, alone and comfortable there in the damp darkness. They do not ask for light, nor food other than the few nutrients hidden in the duff of the shed.
In the end, I latched on to a flowing, larger leathery mushroom and decided I'd take a attractive selfie with it, you know, as a way of showing my admiration for the forest mushrooms. Too bad the beauty just happened to stink rather loudly, loudly of rotting meat. Then again, I would think there might be another organism out there that would find this intriguing and want to lock a lip on it this spreading the multitude of spores. I had to wash up.

Please show me a delicious, appropriate smelling, edible mushroom. I have been a good boy and I want to eat locally. I want to forage---but no.



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