Pictures from outdoor exercise.
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Turkey tails grow on wood, too. They are considered "edible," as in they aren't poisonous, but not particularly tasty and tough, tough, tough. I found a couple nice Ganoderma on a foray a couple years ago before COVID when we could go spend time together.... I gave the Reishi to someone who was going to make medicine out of it. We had fun drawing on the artist conk.
While I was working today, had the chance to dump leaves on-site in a wooded area. Kept my eyes open and found this on a dead snag, maybe oak.
Old, faded, and dried out but still recognizable as Turkey Tails (Trametes versicolor). And the right size too.
The ones at eye level are about the size of my thumbnail. Lower on the tree, near the base where there may have been more moisture available while they were growing, they were three times larger.
I collected a few specimens to take home. You can see the pores on the underside.
Just above head level I found several False Turkey Tails (Stereum ostrea) also faded and dried. (The name ostrea, from the word 'oyster', describes its shape.)
Still a polypore but the pores so small, the underside appears smooth.
While the Turkey Tails are too tough to eat, they can be simmered (not hard boiled) for 30 to 120 minutes to extract their medicinal compounds. Turkey Tail tea is suppose to be somewhat bitter but less so than Reishi tea. Other non-water soluble medicinal compounds can be extracted with 100 proof vodka.
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International Buy Nothing Day. Opt Outside!
I went to the forest today to do some mushrooming with a couple friends I married years ago. That was a fun wedding.
We found a whole crap ton of candy caps. That was my goal. It's one I've wanted to learn to ID. My friend told me there were a couple key things to look for, and he could describe them but they would make way more sense if I saw/felt them. True. I've certainly walked over thousands of these while collecting chanterelles but didn't know. Now I do....
We got as many as we wanted, and then a friend found a Sparassis (cauliflower mushroom). I had a two-gallon bucket, so I put my candy caps in a paper sack, and she cut and cleaned the Sparassis and put it in the bucket.
We went back to the car and dropped that off and then spent a while doing a three mile loop and found so many more fun mushrooms including some Tricholoma equestre. These are edible mushrooms that now have an asterisk. I have eaten them before. I took a few; I won't eat pounds a day for several days in a row. A few very small hedgehogs; going back in a week or three should be good for them.
We even found a gnome under a tree.....
Went back by their house, enjoyed a beer, and we cooked up some of the Sparassis along with some leftover Mayocoba beans they had. Good times.
And now your quiz. Can you identify this mushroom?
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And now your quiz. Can you identify this mushroom?
Is it the Gypsy mushroom (Cortinarius caperatus)?0 -
Good answer!
Ridges on cap, not viscid. Annulus present; no vulva. Not growing on wood.
Used to be called Rozites caperata. I sometimes think they change the genus/species or even family just to sell more books.... Nah. We get better at understanding how they are related. The not-really-edible mushroom I always knew as Gomphus floccosis is not known as Turbinellus floccosis. Before my time it was called Cantharellus floccosis.
Taxonomists. Geez.....1 -
We almost brought it home, but instead hung it up in a tree so it could disperse its spores over a larger area. We'll go back next year. I've only been mushrooming for about 20 years or so, so I still have a LOT to learn. I did get to go pass on some knowledge about how to ID candy caps with another friend who has good luck with boletes. I wish I was better at finding those. They are SO delicious.1
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This is kind of cheating because I didn't get much exercise. I mostly stayed in the truck or standing nearby.
But wow.
It was a surprisingly mild and dry day, and it's late November. I went out to the wildlife refuge to look for Tundra Swans. I saw them. Over a thousand!
I guess I could have taken a walk down the road, but all the trails are closed November 1 - March 31 for the birds.
I also saw kestrels, harriers, egrets, a red tail, widgeons, coots, shovelers, pintails, Canada geese (and probably Brant's geese, but I can't tell 'em apart), ravens, and lots of mallards. Surprisingly no eagles. I didn't see elk either. Nice day for it; binoculars stayed dry.3 -
Strange Christmas weather we are having this year.
Usually we are cold, sometimes bitterly so. Ice stroms are not unheard of. Rarely we'll even have a white Christmas.
We've been consistently in the mid-60s to the mid-70s F (20 to 25-ish C) all week with more unseasonably warm weather the next few days.
On Christmas day, after the excitement faded, I went out in the late afternoon and looked for winter mushrooms thinking Oysters and Lion's Mane might be found after the rains we've had and now this unseasonably warm weather.
160 acres in the middle of the Ozark Plateau to search with wooded hills, hollows, springs, and creeks.
And it was a great day for a 90 minute hike through the woods, off trail and sliding though dry leaves on top of loose gravel scree down steep slopes into bramble filled hollows. I worked up a sweat with my 26 year old son and 13 year old niece. Truely, it was fun.
No harvestable mushrooms, sad to say (too dry despite the rain a few days back), but the niece was thrilled to gleen an armadillo pelvis with spine that we found. (Found the armor shell too but it stayed in the woods.) She is more than a bit of a nature nut.
We did find tons of dehydrated Turkey Tails and False Turkey Tails, one stump with Reishi way past their prime, and what I'm pretty sure were small half rotten Artist's conk. Saw one small example of what I think were Oyster mushrooms but very small. They didn't really get large enough to identify 100% before they dried out but even though they looked somewhat like bleached out Turkey Tails, they had what looked like decurrent gills.
A bit of a dissapointment mushroom wise, by still good times. (No photos, sorry.)1 -
It's typical holiday weather in Ottawa... a good dash of snow and freezing rain... The sidewalks are slick with ice so walking is a hazard I'd rather not risk. In fact, I'm planning to spend a bit of time outside today with an ice scraper as the salt I threw down yesterday looks like it did it's work so I should be able to clear my driveway and front walkway.1
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Well @d_thomas02 I think we got your snow. It's kind of rare for us, but we got about three inches overnight with three more forecast for today and a bit more over the next 48 hours. Tomorrow there should be enough on the street/sidewalk to go ski. I could probably go today, and maybe I will. First... more coffee.
Hummingbirds are happy to have liquid nectar in the feeder, and the songbirds are going to town on suet, oil seeds, and a nice warm bath. They are knocking all the snow off the bushes.
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I ended up doing a little tour today. Ski tour.
I put on my skis on the front porch, then went down to Willamette Park. I happened upon a neighbor skiing home after three laps. She said she had set some nice tracks. I ran into some other neighbors about 100 feet farther down the hill walking their dogs. Everyone was out.
I did one lap around the sports fields and through the north part of the park. I didn't go farther south because the snow was absent or really cruddy in the trees to access the other half of the park. It's a big park. I think maybe 600 acres. Then I carefully went back up around the back of the building at the top of the hill where the park entry is. I walked across the snow-free area and into the cemetery. I skied across the cemetery, down to another street, then west to a street that leads back to mine. There wasn't enough snow; I had to be careful. I got to another park and skied across that - it got me off the sidewalk/out of the street. Then I skied back to my street, past my house, down to the nearby field for a lap around there, then a lap around my back yard and up onto the deck to the back door.
Kind of fun to ski out the front door, so a 3.8 mile tour, ski around your back yard, and ski up on the deck to your back door. Probably not my worst day of skiing. And I never have skied through my town.
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Yesterday was the last unseasonably warm day we were going to have for quite a while so I drove down to a state forest area about 10 minutes from my home.
Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area, roughly 2700 acres with a river running through the middle of it. I thought this might be a good place to look for winter mushrooms as we've had rain the last couple of days.
I did find mushrooms but no edibles that were harvestable. Still, I enjoyed the 5 mile hike across the trails through the river bottom on New Year's Eve.
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When I saw your pocketknife, I thought for a moment "Does that mushroom have a label?" and then I focused a bit closer.
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We did a 7-mile hike through the old equipment tunnels they used to build Hoover Dam. Great views of Lake Mead!2 -
I have been out to some friends' house a few times in the last few months now that the weather is better. They live about five or eight miles out of town in an area with plenty of industrial forest land. That means roads and trails. I've been going out to hike with them in part because it's nice, and in part because I bring my GPS-enabled wrist device. One of my friends is, for some reason, enjoying putting lines on an air photo of exactly where the roads and trails are. I think in part he is curious where some of the spurs go. We did some exploring yesterday, so our "five mile hike" turned into about 7.5 miles. That was fine. Got nice views. Saw lady slipper orchids, trout lilies (a.k.a. faun lilies a.k.a. dog-toothed violet), bleeding heart, false solomon's seal, serviceberry, and lots of poison oak. At the end of the hike, my friends took me back around an overgrown area behind their house to show me some old logging gear that was probably abandoned in the '40s.
Ferns were coming out. Saw a few snakes out getting warm. Even saw two other groups of people hiking. This particular landowner allows hiking on their land, but you have to have a permit. No big deal. They don't let you collect mushrooms, which is too bad. I'd be concerned anyway because of the herbicides they spray.
We also saw false morels and a bunch of other mushrooms.
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Looky what I found growing on a walnut stump in a client's yard. My first harvestable wild mushrooms.
Three guess what kind of polypore mushroom these are and the first two don't count.
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Schedule and weather finally aligned here (in Michigan), where we've been having one of those Springs that hints a little, but seems unwilling to full-bore Show Up. For the first time, I got out my li'l ol' lady hybrid bike, took an easy pace ride on the local trails, only about 11 miles, but it felt So Good to be cycling through the actual world (birds! dogs! fresh air! even sunshine!) instead of slogging away on the stationary bike in my living room playing games on my phone. Bonus: The early wildflowers are blooming!
There were a few Trilliums (T. grandiflorum), some Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) here and there, and a wealth of Eastern Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica). The Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) has its lovely umbrella-esque foliage, but not flowers yet.
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Spring flowers popping up... so lovely!!1
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The place I've been running is a large park - a bit less than 500 acres. Part of it used to be a farm that the City acquired maybe 25 years ago and did a restoration. The native forest is growing. There's also some sports fields, playgrounds, shelters, a disc golf course, and a bunch of trails through a riparian forest. I've been watching the progression of flowers.
This week there's False Solomon's Seal, Oregon Avens, Fringed cups, and many others.
I might get out in the forest today, in the rain, and see different species like bleeding heart, chocolate lily, tiger lily, and others.4 -
Well, my friend and I went for a six-mile walk through that park. We had to alter our routes several times; the path closest to the river was underwater in several spots. The river is up much higher than normal for this time of year. It usually floods the trail once or twice in the winter. It's been a dry winter and relatively dry spring until May. We're catching up. I doubt we'll keep building snowpack, but the reservoirs will fill.
My friend showed me a place she knew there were Chocolate Lilies growing (a.k.a., Checker Lily).
We also saw Avens, trillium, trout lilies (a.k.a., fawn lilies, a.k.a, dog-tooth violet), larkspur, camas, violet, fringed cups, hawthorn, bleeding heart, serviceberry, elderberry, geraniums of various sorts, false Solomon's Seal, and oh a bunch of other flowers.
A couple images were worth a share.
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@mtaratoot, how lovely!
I didn't realize there was a US wildflower checker lily (we don't have them in Michigan, AFAIK). Maybe Fritillaria affinis?
I grow the alien one (from Europe/Asia) that looks similar, Fritillaria meleagris. One of my (many) favorites: The pattern seems so improbable. There's a white variant, too - every once in a while I get one of those. The checkered pattern is still there, but quite subtle, hard to photograph.
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@AnnPT77
Unless the name has changed since the first edition of Pojar & MacKinnon, it's F. lanceolata. Range is west of the Cascades in Washington & Oregon and along the east side of the southern half of Vancouver Island and the western part of mainland Canada in about that same area.
My friend showed me another plant that she thought was a Solomon's Seal. It's not. I finally realized it's a Hooker's Fairybell (Dosporum hookeri). It's the first picture after the Chocolate Lily.2 -
I had a run through the mud again today, but didn't stop to take pictures. But after I got home and cleaned up, I decided to take this one because..... I harvested two artichokes today.
I also cut the first open peonies of the season. I cut some earlier today and put them in water to open inside, then found these. Shamelessly holding the jar in front of the double-file and some tulips in the front yard.
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Today's practice for retirement included a bike ride. I need to tune up my road bike. I took my commuter. I was only going to go a few miles to a wetland that has a boardwalk, but the friend who was going with me decided not to go. So I had no schedule and went about 21 miles mostly on multi-use trails (bike paths). A few short segments were on very lightly traveled roads, but some of those are higher speed roads without a real bike lane. Part of that was because I missed a turn to take me through some neighborhoods to another bike path. Now I know where it is.
I pedaled out a path up one river to where it crosses that river. Twice. Then I veered off the bike path to a bike friendly road and up/over/around a very large hill and along a wetland. Then across to a very lightly traveled road to another highly traveled road, around to another road that went to a secret little bike path back to the main path.... then turned around but diverted to another path along another natural area with lots of hiking trails and made a lap around there, then through campus and back home. I did stop twice to get a picture to share here.
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Picture yourself in a boat on a river . . . well, I'm no "Lucy in the Sky", but my double partner on Friday took a photo of me in bow of my double, at the dock, on our river.
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The power of music... As soon as I read that opening comment, I was humming...1
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This picture is awful. You can't even tell what it is.
I'll tell you what it is.
I took a canoe out today for the first time this season. I was surprised to see how high the water was. I was pleased to see that the canoe was fine in the fast current and that I still remember how to paddle. Fishing wasn't very good, but that's ok. Wind was calm, and it was nice to feel paddle on the water.
At one point I let my canoe lodge up against a log that's been down in the river for five or ten years at the top of an eddy. It held me so I could try to fish. As I mentioned - not too many bites. But I looked down at the log my boat was being held by, and there was a dragonfly emerging from its larva. Very cool.
Sorry about the terrible picture.3 -
@mtaratoot, that's a very cool thing! I'm glad you got to see it, even if we . . . well, kinda can't.
I've only seen an insect doing that "emerge and hydraulic pump to adult shape" process once, in the wild, and it was a profoundly, profoundly memorable thing. (In my case, it was a cicada on a tree, when I was a child.) It seems impossible, miraculous.
Lucky you!2 -
I remember seeing cicadas emerge when I was growing up and especially when we'd have those big hatch years.
I think I saw a dragonfly coming out a couple years ago near the same place - just a little downstream. I might have been able to get a better picture if I was:- Not trying to keep a canoe upright
- Not in a bit of moving water that didn't let me keep the canoe as still as desired
- Not worried about dropping my phone over the gunwale
- Able to actually get a little closer. The image I posted was a cropped portion of a very zoomed picture. I bet there was schmutz on the lens too.
I hope to see this happen again more often. I'll try to get a picture. I wanted a picture of a big fish in my net, but.... Nope. Was still nice to feel the hull under my butt.
As I was getting ready to launch, I had to get rid of some tangles in my fishing line. Rods had been stashed in the back of the truck for months. A bystander asked where I was going; I told him. He said that the water looks awfully strong to get back upstream. I told him, "This is a fast canoe." He said it looked like it, but only one paddle and only one person. I also pointed out the slack water near the island across the main current. I told him it's usually pretty easy to climb that. He said he didn't realize that was an island.4
