Pearls in the Grass

We are fancy enough on the Divine Property to pay to have our grass mowed every two weeks, as it was today, but yesterday in the tall overgrown grass along with feasting bunnies I found amanita mushrooms -- amanitas have these "flake salt" skin tags -- and knew they weren't for eating -- never eat a mushroom with a "flake salt" or "skin tag" look: poisonous as heck, especially a white one, known as a "destroying angel." So I admired it for a time and appreciated its pearlescent skin, a feature unnoticed before. A shaggy or "pilly" stem is another warning sign. Cut down before it opened up, so it did not have a chance to assume its classic toadstool shape.

Like Flesh

A known oyster-mushroom log at the entrance to the eastern woods produced these fleshy beauties in late April (photo taken 27 April); the scissors help show the size. I'd been harvesting that log for about two years, April to December; the whole area around it was rich in mushrooms edible and non-edible because that opening was a game path as well as my favorite path, and 'shrooms love to grow in disturbed earth.

Then one day in May came a huge New Holland earth mover that for no reason broke through this log and others and treaded well into the woods, crushing to mud the best chanterelle, oyster, and Bearded Tooth patches I have cultivated and picked from for three or four years. Apparently it was for no reason except wanton destruction. They went into the woods as far as the dump but did not clean it up. I don't own the land so I can't object and besides, what's done is done.

It's a heartache. I visited the site again today and can't set it right. Chanterelles are due in about four weeks, if conditions are right. I seeded those everywhere in that area of woods, so I believe all is not lost regarding chanterelles. But the oysters? If I am good, I will be led to more. Maybe this mechanically disturbed earth will make hunting there even better one day, when the scars of the treads heal over.

Stranger in Paradise

Where've I been? In Portugal. It's all the Europe anyone needs: They have cathedrals, cloisters, narrow cobbled streets, great paintings, fish and wine, seashore, vineyards, fountains, Roman ruins, the winningest soccer team that took the EuroCup when I and my fellow tour members were there watchin' on TV rootin' "Port-u-GAL! Port-u-GAL!," and the very best bread in the world, which I'm currently trying to duplicate. Ahem. I got home five hours late, at midnight, because a huge thunderstorm postponed my ride, and early the next morning suited up and first thing, after picking up broken tree limbs, went into my woods, and what do I see there but the yellow carpet of chanterelles I dream of all year. And knew I was home.


The Portuguese are friendly and polite, the youth speak English, and so many of them, all ages, helped me when I couldn't work their subway or the train schedule to Lisbon and felt stupid because all I could say was "Good day" and "Thank you." One day, tired, I pointed at a menu item not knowing what it was, but it was 2 euros (about $2.15 USD) and to my surprise came the most wonderful slice of ham and slice of cheese on one of their marvelous crusty rolls, plus a latte. These people are obsessed with painted ceramic tiles -- on the fronts of buildings and churches, hallways, bathrooms -- and I became obsessed as well, and will soon (after I wash and cook my shrooms) post a few photos of sights that knocked my socks off.

Mushrooms Now? Yes!

In the woods seeking trinkets such as acorn caps and turkey feathers to decorate the Solstice tree (Solstice is Monday at 10:48 p.m. Central Time; be there or be square) I saw from a distance white stuff on a fallen tree, and hoped for treasure, and found it: fresh, edible oyster mushrooms, not only this ruffly one but more on the other side of the log, a plateful. A mushroom fan never stops hunting and hoping, even in December. There's my glove so you can see it was sizable. Among the other fungi in the woods were tree ears (edible, but not tasty), and common inedibles such as turkey tails and false turkey tails (false turkey tails have smooth undersides). I was two days too late to get a "chicken of the woods" that had blossomed at the base of a tree. Frozen and then thawed, it was mushy, no good.

I knew the possibilities because in December 2014 I found a dead tree with ten pounds of huge oysters around its foot. That tree has since fallen and this year produced nothing. 2015 was a frustrating year for morels -- too cold, and then they weren't abundant; I found only one -- but a great year for chanterelles, carpeting the woods in June and July.

Crazy People

Sylvia and Dennis and young Sonya were among the 10 of us treasure-hunting in the woods one day during this nice rainy May, finding in two hours more than 30 species of fungi where at first we didn't see any at all, because most specimens were tiny and the big flagrant diva mushrooms, such as chickens, or milkies (they "bleed" milklike liquid), are about three weeks away. Among our finds: Sonya has found a Stalked Scarlet Cup (Sarcoscypha occidentalis), and (below) the 1/2-inch "eyelash cup" (Scutellinia scutellata), yellow with unmistakeable "eyelashes," which I have greatly enlarged for detail. For edibles, on this trip we found only wood ears. We think that fungi, the fourth Kingdom of creation, are the coolest, most outrageous stuff our earth produces--in my view, second only to the mineral Kingdom's gemstones. Guess we're easy to please. You'll notice we (as do Sylvia and Dennis) carry woven baskets and within them waxed sandwich bags to hold their specimens. Crazy people and woven baskets traditionally go together. You can always tell shroomers by our baskets and our socks pulled up over our pant legs.

Chicken

My mushroom classes and forays with the mushroom society have taught me to recognize several common mushrooms, but one is always seeking the edible ones, and here I found one in a ground-level hole in a tree, a few "petals" of Chicken of the Woods or Sulfur Shelf (Laetiporus sulphureus), so called because of its bright-yellow underside. This isn't Hen of the Woods (Grifola frondosa), which looks like an actual hen with gray feathers and no head; years ago I found a glorious 24-ounce Hen in my woods, which I kept for a while out of sheer delight with it, and now I know that one was edible too. The Sulfur Shelf should perhaps be called "Chicken Breast of the Woods," because it has lovely dense white meat, divinely scented like canned mushroom soup.

The pieces you can break off from the shelf-like whole are fresh enough to eat, and I broke off about three ounces, leaving the remainder. Having checked it with my mushroom-identification manuals, and having seen slides and real-life samples in a course and actually obtained some recipes for Chicken of the Woods (always cook wild mushrooms), I was sure this was the choice edible, but was too chicken to take even a sliver, saute it and bite. I left it for wildlife to enjoy.

Meadow Mushroom

Mushrooms are not animal, vegetable or mineral, but alone among all things in nature are in a class of their own. This year's soggy pre-summer weather, with thunderstorms afoot every evening, is great only for fungi, and a sprinkling of these, Meadow Mushrooms (Agaricus campestris), popped up in my lawn overnight, full-sized, four inches across with solid, inch-thick stems (which I removed for the photo) and fresh pinkish gills. I love wild foods that I don't have to hunt for but instead come to me. As much as I'd love to taste these (with bacon), and they're said to be edible (especially with bacon), glamour photos is as far as I'll go.

Devil's Urn Mushrooms

Looking like a dead man's fingers and toes, crawling up from under -- creepy fungi! There's actually another mushroom called Dead Man's Fingers, but "these ones" (as we say in Missouri) are Devil's Urns (Urnula craterium), the first I've seen on the property. Their rubbery "eyeballs" pop open eventually and they turn into little empty black bowls -- inedible.