Mycelium to meet ya!

oof said:
I agree.
When I was younger(pre internet) morels were mythological little beasties . I was fairly confident I knew what I was looking for, but I'd be damned if I could ever find one.

Skip ahead I'm 25, out of the navy, and out in the woods with another guy mushroom hunting. He's 75 yards from me and asks if I'm finding any, nope says I. So he comes over to check on me, tells me to stop, so I'm standing there like a doof and he asks if I see anything "nope". He says "kneel down"... so I'm looking and I swear this thing steps out from behind a leaf because it wasn't there a second ago. A morel! Then another and another. I stand up, the clouds parted, angels start singing, harps playing, they were everywhere.

I think I found 40 in the spot I was standing in the middle of, and another 60 or so on my own that day. All it took was my brain being reprogrammed to correctly interpret what my eyes were seeing.
Click to expand...
Imagine how I felt after weed whacking a bunch of dandelions along a gravel driveway and found this.

g6abrI2.jpg
 
I'm pretty careful when it comes to eating a new mushroom. I really don't want to die from the screaming shitakes.
I did a spore print on most of the honey mushrooms before I was confident I was correctly identifying them.
 
These are another mushroom that was new to me last year. Still not absolutely sure whether they were horse mushrooms or meadow mushrooms.

They were growing in fairy rings six to ten feet across. I didn't get pics of those rings, but I did go back a week later and talked to the owner. This was behind his building.




This is the biggest ring I've ever seen personally, probably 40 feet across or better.
Unfortunately I was a bit late and they were pretty wormy. Would have been a record haul.
Spore print
 
Not sure what these were. Thinking either parasol or false parasol. I chose to leave identifying these for a later date.

 
Eastern fly agaric, one of my favorites. I usually only find one or two of these a year. Last year found quite a few more.


Mixed in with chicken fat suillus.


I always thought the fly agaric would make you high, or sick, or dead, but internet sources say boiled in a couple of fresh changes of water make it edible.
It's a member of the aminata family...
Chicken fat suillus.

These I dried and stored, but I haven't tried yet. They are slimy and stick to everything.
 
do guns and knives sprout from the ground like mushrooms, as pictured, in the USA? That would explain a lot! 🤣
 
hauled in another 1.4kg of oysters in today! Not in a swamp but I had to poke some down with a stick since they were pretty high up and I'm pretty low down
xd6TiFb.jpg


wpoz2z2.jpg


9457dTx.jpg


sauteed in butter and avocado oil, granulated garlic, lemon pepper and fresh basil
CHYTESj.jpg
 
Geez - you've got some great haul going there. No chance of finding more than a hat full around here - a kid's hat at that.
As for the high up and low issue, that is a constant with CHAGA harvesting. Still working on my system. :confused:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top