What I do know and what I don't know.

Last night I sat down with Gary Lincoff's Audubon Field Guide, thumbed thru the photos and made of list of mushrooms which I am familiar, comfortable (to some degree) and able to identify in the wild. The list does not give me much in the way of bragging rights but just assembling the list helped to highlight my identification strengths and weaknesses. Identifying mushroom from photographs is a tricky proposition but it was a good tool for jogging my memory. I did not include mushrooms that I had seen or heard about at club functions only those that I had seen or gathered myself and felt comfortable with the identification. I don't encounter many boletes in my neck of the woods so I cautiously rely on the blue staining and red pore rules.

Go thru the book and you'll question your identification skills because some of the look alikes seem more like the evil twin. I've made the resolution to improve my identification skills for the mushrooms that I encounter on my walks. I'm starting to get the fever and it's way too early in the season.

by Joe  Contact Me

A taste of spring

This extended spell of warm weather is sure to throw a monkey wrench into mother natures timepiece. Spring weather now, then Winter comes back for February, March and the first half of April. And the morel season is a train wreck.

Today I took advantage of the pleasant weather to do some more pruning on my apple trees. My system for pruning my trees is pretty straight forward. I work around the tree removing the water sprouts/suckers, crossing branches and dead or diseased wood. I prune the branches so that they grow laterally and open up the tree to sunlight. When push comes to shove I favor new wood over old wood. I use a pair of Felco pruners and a Craftsman pruning saw. Good pruning shears are essential and the Felco pruners are great. They are now into their third or fourth pruning season and work as well as ever.

Now I didn't learn how to prune these trees overnight. I've been working at this for about twenty years and each year I learn a little bit more. And yes I do question my thinking at times when I look at last years cuts and the current year's growth. Live and learn.

And so it is with mushrooms. Each year I do learn a little but more about mushrooms but there is nothing systematic about my learning process. I am trying to make a list of mushrooms that I know and group them using my "Easiest" to "Expert" system. I'd like to try and target a few mushrooms to add to the list of those that I am comfortable gathering.

Learning and gathering mushrooms is a lot like the learning processing for pruning the trees except, and this is a big except, making mistakes pruning trees usually results in cuts, scrapes, bruises and falls. Bad decisions selecting what to cut and what to keep are not fatal and given time mother nature compensates for pruning errors. Mother nature is not so forgiving when you put a bad mushroom in your mouth.

 

by Joe  Contact Me

Winter mushrooms

I just read in Yahoo Groups that oyster mushrooms can be found in the woods. I took advantage of the weather yesterday to resupply my cache of firewood from the woodpile and began pruning my fruit trees. When I got into the bottom of the pile I found these. They were a bit old and waterlogged. Too bad I wasn't splitting wood a few days ago when they would have be edible.

by Joe  Contact Me

Learning Mushrooms Learning Mushrooms

I've been thinking about learning mushrooms and identification skills. How many mushrooms do you know? And, how much do you know about the inner workings of mushrooms?

How do you classify mushroomers? Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced? You might get a better idea of their skill levels by looking at the mushrooms they can identify with certainty. Let's use the ski trail system.

Easiest

More Difficult

Most Difficult

Expert Only

This grouping has it's own issues. Take the amanita for instance. If your goal was to avoid them like the plague, that is if it even resembles an amanita don't touch it then that's Easiest but if you're going to eat them that's Expert Only.

When I joined the club my identification system was simple. If it was white on top and pink underneath then it was safe otherwise it was evil. This was the rule we used when we picked mushroom in the yard and the cow pasture. The rule for stump mushrooms was pick those (follow pointing finger). As a kid I remember stomping on some morels we found while we were doing the Tarzan swing thing in the woods. Anything that weird had to be evil.

What mushrooms would you folks place in each category? More on this at another time.

 

Seems a little early for this but I also spotted two dandylions and the crocus seem to yawning and stretching.

by Joe  Contact Me

Mushroom Soup II Mushroom Soup II

Oh the weather outside was frightful but the fire (and the food) were so delightful... As it turns out mama's first batch of mushroom soup was tastier than the second. Not that it wasn't delicious, but some small thing seemed to be missing. We added salt but that wasn't it. Amazingly there is still food left. We had so much food that I had to save the mushroom stuffed cabbage until today.

Those of you who tried some of my Christmas recipes please write to me an let me know how they turned out for you.

Merry Christmas

by Joe  Contact Me

Mushroom Soup

On the Gregorian calendar today is the Feast of Theophany on the Julian calendar today is Christmas Eve. Now it's no secret that I just love Christmas. All of the food that was left from the earlier Christmas Eve went into the freezer and reappears, as if by magic, this evening. We did neglect to freeze my wife's special mushroom soup and only discovered the mistake after it was too late. Yesterday mama made the soup again and I think that it's going to be ever tastier that the first batch. Like I said we cook up a lot of mushrooms for Christmas Eve, so many that it takes two Christmases to use them up.

by Joe  Contact Me