The Fungus Among Us

Today started out bright, beautiful, and early. Not as early as some I am sure, for I was not on the hunt for elk, but mushrooms. I woke up knowing that I wanted to look for mushrooms and make a soup. The harder part was deciding where to go. It has been a long time since I planned a hunt for fungus, I usually enjoyed picking when I came across it. I decided to go and explore the new road where they are building the new community college. I drove it a week or so ago for the first time, and I remember noticing the abundance of trails surrounding the new construction. I started exploring some of the logging roads around the new college at about 8 AM. I was excited that I had a good start on the day. I have been sleeping away my last few weekends. I parked in front of a four wheeler trail and started heading out. Just minutes into the walk we came across what I believe to be false morels. That was exciting, even though there is no value in them at all. I have never found either real or false morels before, they tend to be so camouflage, as this one was. I guess I have to admit that I did almost step on it before noticing.

Pretty sure this one is called the Black Elfin Saddle.

It is nice to see mushrooms at work recycling the forest detritus. These Sulfur Tufts (I think), though small, are doing their part. Very cute.

Great octopus tree. The trail ended here and opened up into a hill that looked like it headed east over to Idaho Point.

I think Daisy appreciated not trampling through sticks for a minute. This open field had a great view, but I didn't enjoy it for long, I was still on a mission.

This slug was pretty large. It looked like he was making his way over to this mushroom.....

Thought for a split second that I had found my first edible mushroom! I knew instantly that it was a bolete, but further observing informed me that it was not a King Bolete, but an Admirable Bolete. I left if for the slug, and continued.

Many mushrooms on this trail were working hard breaking down the forest floor. This one in particular reminded me of something that Mario would jump around on at the end of a level.

Daisy is wondering who Mario is. Well, it was a very fun walk, but after at least an hour, we came up with three mushrooms.

I still made her pretend to be proud.

And she did it well.

Could we be in the ocean right now?? Looks like coral. How appropriate that it is a type of coral mushroom.

I am still out by the college, but I have moved onto another trail. After a quick ten or so minutes, a very overgrown trail opened up into a humongous open field. It was quite surprising! The field was covered by the cutest little puff ball mushrooms. The author of the link uses the term as openly as I do.

Close up these mushrooms don't look like they have stems at all. I smashed one of them open and it was kinda moist in the middle. Not powdery like I had imagined. They must not have been mature yet. They covered this large open space, at least where it wasn't flooded. I made my way around this open field and found a few places where the grass may have been drowning.

Must have walked right by these guys on the way to the open field. All three were good sized, but the one below blew me away.

This by far is the largest Amanita that I have ever seen! It had to have measured at least eight inches in diameter. It was insane. A lot of poison was in that mushroom.

I walked back to the car, and moved onward. This was growing on the side of the road on 98th street. They were way taller than the first coral fungus. I stopped where there was a pull off and looked like a trail ahead. It was pretty steep, but much less forest litter. Daisy sniffed everything, so she was way behind me. I didn't bring my paper sack or anything, I didn't think I was really going to find anything. So I came around a big stump and looked behind it, and there it was, the first good patch!

Finally, I found a patch! I'd say I had a few miles under my belt now, I think I deserved a little jackpot.

That was my first pile, and I had three more in the car. I now had enough to make my soup, so I was happy. I scooped them all up and used my t shirt as a basket and started back down the hill. On the way I spotted a few more in a hole under a downed tree......

Following the trail behind this fallen tree, led me to another larger patch. I was a little too excited to take any pictures. I had to go back to my car and retreive my paper sack, my shirt would not do for this amount of shrooms. I had my paper sack over half full by the time I was done with the second patch. I had more than enough now to make the soup that I wanted.
This deer almost gave me a heart attack! I never thought she would stick around to let me take her picture. But she did, I got quite a few.

I had to show off my mushrooms to someone. Although Jennifer wasn't too impressed, Santos sure thought they were cool.

Mom said it was like a flower.

I left Jennifer's house and make my way out to Logsden. Ashley and mom were sure willing to help me make the soup. They were very, very helpful.

Ashley managed to help with the soup, and still work in the store. She is so talented.

The soup was really good. I let Daisy out of the car, and never did get her into the back room. I made sure to tell her not to come inside the store. I don't know if that pissed her off or what, but I guess she didn't want to make it easy for anyone else to get inside either.