Four or five years ago we had a deep soaking spring rain the made the wildflowers better than I’ve ever seen them before. Often when I see an incredibly (to me) unusual occurrence I will point it out to me wife. She seems to never agree with me, but often other people will. Ben also noticed the heavy year for acorns. And, anybody that went down the local ridges noticed the wildflowers.
If there is something unusual with the wind or the rain, the river or the night sky, I will notice it. Sometimes I get annoyed that I’m the only one to notice these things. My wife scolds me for even mentioning it, and accuses me of “always saying that it’s best year for etc. etc. etc….” So I apologize, but this is the best year that I have EVER seen for mushrooms, bar none!
I like the years of heavy acorn crops. Makes for fat bears and hogs.
ReplyDeleteNever seen a bear eat mushrooms before and never seen a hog eat them either but in my heart I know they will. They eat everything.
Oregon
a lot of people have tried to get me to eat one of those mushrooms in the forest but i don't like sitting in one place for three days and i can't take that much time off work. i'm sort of surprized you are puffing up mushrooms after your last post. maybe you got a contact high from the sixties. ever thought of that.
ReplyDeletemy magic word to get this to print is "hempo". wierd aint it
We had a lot of those up behind our house in Garberville.My Mom told me not to ever eat them,but they sure looked "Tasty".
ReplyDeleteThose Banana Slugs looked good too!
Whose water tank is that in the last picture?
ReplyDeleteOregon
The first pic looks like Lactarius delicioucus. Edible but not delicious. The second, maybe the same. The third looks like Cowboy's handkerchief, yukky... the fourth, I don't know but it has white gills so "DON'T EAT IT!"
ReplyDeleteRemember... "Neva Eata Amanita".
Tons of Chanterelles this year.
Now I see the fourth pic is underside of the third...
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Trinidad, we had lots of little fairy ring mushrooms on the lawn. Marasmius oreides. Great with eggs. My wife wouldn't touch them... more for me. That was when I got interested in mushrooms.
Nice pictures, Ernie.
Thanks Ben.
ReplyDeleteI have no intention of eating any wild picked mushroom.
Oregon
The water tank is at the top of the hill between Greycliff Acres and Benbow. They pump Benbow water up to it, and it suplies the Greycliff people with good clean water.
The trees are newcomer pines. For some reason the people that moved up here planted Monterey Pine trees to grow like weeds and fall over.
FYI- Monterey Pine makes the worst firewood, burns but not many BTU's.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Check out Hideaway Hills in Salmon Creek if you want to see a Monterey Pine disaster. Red Needle Blight and hundreds of dying trees.
ReplyDeleteRemember... "Neva Eata Amanita".
ReplyDeleteLOL! I've eaten amanita muscaria mushrooms a couple of times and know others who use them. Those who haven't tried them have no idea of the marvelous benefits therein. They don't understand these wisdom bearing plants anymore than they understand the old wisdom bearing stories which were created by indigenous cultures who have used them and other similar entheogens throughout history.
What a year for wild edible 'shrooms!! We're calling it a 20-year event...many, many of both the yellow and white chanterelles, "edible and choice"...also giant hedgehogs, 12" across! Lots and lots of normal-sized hedgehogs coming up along with yellow-footed chanterelles. No boletes though and oysters were just OK...that's fine, the chanterelles are awesome! Ernie, they must be OK if they sell wild-picked ones at Costco, ya think? BTW, I believe chanterelles haven't been able to be cultivated. They live in a symbiotic relationship with oaks, come up in the same places year after year...buy some in Costco and try 'em but fresh-picked is always better...
ReplyDeleteDon't eata amanita doesn't mean those red spotted ones, that means all those ones that kill hungry migrants by week-long, gut-gripping liver failure.
ReplyDeleteThem are easy to tell by the ring on the stem and if not that broken ball on the base.
The other fucked up shroom is the Galerina which is not as easy. Just google it, you'll see them and recognize them growing all over the woods.
Folks are foolish tho to not eat wild mushrooms in Humboldt. For serious, we got thousands of dollars worth of gourmet shrooms popping up all over the place. Chanterelle, hedgehog, porcini, them princess porcini ones, some morels, shaggy manes, downed alders covered with oyster mushrooms.
Look at the Indian folks they been eating all these mushrooms for who even knows how long and they aren't worried about dying.
I'm no expert but I do take the forest mushrooms all the time. A license is cheap in case you worried about that.
I'll leave fungus eating to all you folks out there, yuck!
ReplyDeleteMr Nice, how do you know the Indians ate mushrooms in the old days?
Oregon
Oregon... Lucy Young talks about eating a big black coral mushroom during a starvation winter. You can find her story on Blocksburg.com. As I recall, Albert Smith of Garberville talks about edible mushrooms in his interview. Those folks were here for thousands of years. They knew what to eat. Tis country was so rich in food that Indians rarely traveled far to hunt.
ReplyDeleteMr. Nice... My favorite mushroom is the black chanterelle (Craterellus cornucopoides}. Small and hard to see in the duff. Delicious. They'll be coming soon and can be dried.
Remember... "Neva Eata Amanita"
ReplyDeleteUnless you want to fly like a reindeer. Hmmmm?
This reminds me of a New Yorker magazine cartoon of a shopper at the produce section. One bin said MUSHROOMS $1.79/lb. The other said MUSHROOMS? 5 cents/lb.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas, Ernie !!