Travel

Folks,

Today is the last regular post for a few weeks as I have to focus on packing and moving and unpacking and a bunch of related things. Our offer was accepted and things are moving fast!

I had hoped the new site would be live and the new submission function would be functional and so we’d have a bunch of content lined up, but that’s not the case and I don’t have the time to deal with email submissions right now, so please accept my apologies.  I’ll try to post something here and there, but I don’t expect I’ll be back to a regular schedule until next month, unless the new site comes on before then.

Today’s picture is the view, a 5-10 minute walk from my soon-to-be front door. I’m so very excited to be so close to the river as I spent age 7-30 minus college near this same river but miles downstream. I spent countless hours along and in it, exploring, learning, fishing, partying, and in general, playing with Nature. I’m glad I’ll have such access again – being able to walk to the river from home is such a nice thing, it becomes a companion, a refuge from home and the stressors of life that you can almost stumble to, instead of having to drive somewhere and deal with all that hassle.

Looks like I can eat 1-3 fish per month (depending on species) from this part of the river, which is so much better than where I used to live downstream – fish are verboten for those who care and it always breaks my heart to see so many immigrant laborers fishing to feed their families in the late afternoons and evenings. I get it, and I love to eat fish, so I fish to eat, not just for sport, but it saddens me seeing them feed their families a significant part of their weekly protein from not-so-good waters. The fish that far downstream have heavy metals and nasty chemicals in them, but fresh, “free” protein is undeniable as is the joy of some good time outside catching dinner.

Have a great rest of the week, everybody!

On The Road: On HiatusPost + Comments (23)

Folks,

Sorry for the no-post Friday, my laptop was restoring until the wee hours of the morning and I was sound asleep.

On that note, have a great day and let’s hope this week is full of good stuff, though perhaps less crazy. Or not, maybe this is the fever we need to burn through.

For mushrooms this year, I’ve got one last set of pics and explanations.

First, to answer some questions from earlier posts, like all fungi, the king bolete(boletus edulis) fruit when the conditions are good. That set of conditions varies depending on the type of mushroom. It is often about water. This is for two reasons – wet ground is welcoming to mushroom spores and the moisture from the rain is used to make the mushrooms which are a fruiting of the fungus organism to spread spores. In the mountains of Central/Southern Colorado, temperature is also a factor as rains earlier in the summer do not produce the boletes, and the later in the year, the less likely a rain is to generate growth. These proto mushrooms usually begin underground along the mycelium strands in the dirt. With sufficient moisture and time, they will pop-up from the ground, displacing earth and otherwise forcing themselves up and out of the dark. If there was substantial rain, or if more comes, then the mushroom will keep growing. I’ve seem some (rotten!) that were close to 2 feet tall and I’ve seen pics of even larger specimens from Oregon where moisture is prevalent; the mountains I explore in Colorado are in the arid zone for the most part, only a few spots being “alpine”. The mycelium routes water from a large area to their fruit, so finding pools or areas where water flows when it rains will often be good clues to finding mushrooms.

Mushrooms are huge protein providers, so many forest animals enjoy them, even species that are toxic or distressful to humans. It’s neat to see an elk or deer snacking on a large mushroom, or to see a squirrel or chipmunk run away with one in its mouth. They are tasty and very good for you, but as I recommend, although you can eat some raw, most mushrooms have some proteins and enzymes that can cause gastrointestinal distress. These potential irritants are denatured by cooking. Never eat something unless you are 100% sure you’ve identified it correctly; this takes experience. The wrong mushroom, raw or cooked, can permanently destroy one or more organs or cause a painful, horrible death of organ failure and lingering misery.

Preserving mushrooms is a whole book, I’m sure.  I usually slice them and dry them in my dehydrator or a very low-oven (very risky if you aren’t a hawk!). You can also slice them and mix them with oil and freeze with reasonably good results.  You can also can them – either in water or in tomato sauce (as a jump start on pasta sauce as the boletes contribute a lot of flavor and umami). I keep dried mushrooms in glass jars and they survive fine for years if kept cool, dark, and dry.

I was asked about spore printing to identify mushrooms. What you do is cut two mushrooms of the same type and put each cut on a piece of black or white paper. After a couple of hours, it will release spores from the underside of the cap onto the paper. This print is unique to the species and so is a great tool for identification, even if it takes some time. You do white and black paper because identical-looking mushrooms (LBMs, for example – little brown mushrooms) can shoot out white or black spores or something in between, so it’s best to just spore print both paper colors unless you’re sure. I’ve not seen colored spores, but I believe that there are some neat specimens out there.

I wish I knew more; I hope to be able to spend some serious time learning more about the different species. I’ve got a few books but so much of the detail washes over me like a small wave. I have seen some amazing slime molds and non-mushroom fungus but cannot find the pictures. I expect I’ll find them some day and that will be a new post!

OK, onto the pictures. These were mostly taken in the rain.

Pushing up through the soil/litter. These are not boletes, sullus or something like that. The color is similar, and when you find mature specimens, they often confuse from the top. The dead giveaway is that the underside of the cap has gills whereas the king bolete has tubes.

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On The Road: Mushroom CleanupPost + Comments (8)

A few more shots. I’ll share some more answers and narrative for tomorrow’s post and then we’ll be done with mushrooms for a good, long while!

This hail from the night before! Crazy

What a neat fungus! I’m unable to locate my slime mold and fungus pics from a two day exploration and I’m sad – there are some neat, rare, amazing lifeforms we rarely encounter.

Have a great day, everyone.

On The RoadPost + Comments (14)

Good morning, everybody,

A solid Thanks to TaMara for the past two days, I’m still off-kilter, but I expect my laptop repair Thursday so the end is in sight!

Another day, more pics from previous mushroom hunts.

Enjoy, I’ll try to answer questions previous and new.

Chipmunk damage, but also an older bolete – note the yellow gunk. I think of it like crab/lobster goo – you CAN eat it, and I’m sure someone considers it a delicacy, but it’s trash as far as I’m concerned. I scrape the red caps clean of that yellow crap.

An awesome cluster-find. When folks ask “why king boletes?”, I smile and explain: “it’s like a gold rush – you make a find, collect it, and then as you’re getting up, you see another cluster even better than you just found and then as you scurry over to claim and harvest it, you see three more.”

This is exemplary, close to 5 pounds fresh. I failed to be as precise as I am now as you can see by the cloggy-dirt at the base of the bigger pair.

An Amanita Muscaria, quite gorgeous.

This was from my yard in June 2010. We had this amazing tarantula living on our property. Each September you’d see them marching back to their burrows to overwinter.  Amazing lifeforms.

So we had a “volunteer” from a house a block or so away take up in the front yard next to the road in an empty spot where a fruit tree had failed. I let this plant grow and it was an amazing thing. Once it flowered I could identify it – Jimsonweed, or as I knew it, datura.

I never used it, but the flower was amazing. It would open at dusk and expire the next morning. The opening was a wonder of nature – the stalk would shake and tremor and the petals would unfurl a bit, then a pause (as, I imagined, more liquid was pumped into chambers and tubes). You could HEAR it. An amazing thing and I’ll try to dig up some video with audio to share.

Have a great day, everybody.

On The Road: The MushroomingPost + Comments (11)

Folks,

Here are some pics from years past. Because of tech issues, I’m not on my main machine and can’t get to all my photos to easily search for what I’d hoped for, so this is a bit more of a whimper than bang.

I’ll see if I can sort that out for next week for one final mushroom post showing some of the really neat lifeforms living in our forests. I have seen some crazy weird fungi and slime molds, let me tell you, and I’d like to share.

note – these are from a 2013 expedition in Colorado, likely 11,000 feet

This is a LARGE mushroom!

Also impressive, but nothing like #1.

Zoom into to find the Amanita Muscarias and one bolete.

My haul – close to 35 pounds across two bags. I was less choosy then so I took many more marginal mushrooms and ended up throwing most or all of them away, so that haul isn’t quite as impressive as it could be. But still, yes, lots and lots and lots of mushrooms to cook and preserve. I’ll discuss drying mushrooms next week, but that’s how I handle them. I use my dehydrator and whatever else I can to to dry them out before they spoil. Once dried, they last indefinitely. I mean I’ve got some dried morels from probably 20 years ago that I still throw into soups and such and I know I’ve got 10 year old dried boletes in a jar or two. When there’s a boom, I dry lots and when it’s a normal year, I just eat and share. In a bad year, I eat.

I sliced up that 1.5 pound beauty, sauteing 1/3 in butter, olive oil, garlic, and onion, and used the rest of the slices to stuff a nice rainbow trout I’d caught on the way home. Fresh-caught trout with some freshly-harvested mushrooms is an amazing meal, though I also include some bacon, onion, and homemade whole-wheat breadcrumbs in the stuffing. It’s been 6 years and I still remember that meal!

Have a great day and weekend, everybody. Fall is here and that is good.

On The Road: Pictures Of Mushrooms PastPost + Comments (13)

Good morning, everyone!

Today I’m going to share more mushroom pictures from my most recent Colorado adventure.  This is as much an informational post as scenic because I’m going to teach you how to properly collect a king bolete mushroom.

But first, an important warning: never eat any mushroom if you have the slightest doubt that you’ve properly identified it. While all mushrooms are safe to touch/non-topically poisonous, many of them are distressful-to-deadly when eaten. An important adage: there are old mushroom hunters and bold mushroom hunters, but no old, bold mushroom hunters.  Always learn from those who know so that you have the confidence in what you harvest and eat. Properly identifying mushrooms is fun and a good way to ensure you won’t be rushed to the hospital, so get a good guide or app to supplement your mentor. Finally, to be safest, make a spore print for the most accurate identification.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most mushrooms need to be cooked. Even non-poisonous ones can have some proteins and enzymes that can cause gastrointestinal distress. Technically you can eat many varieties raw, but I prefer to cook them, often in butter with some garlic and shallot/onion.

Before we get to the instructions, I wanted to share a few of the other fungi I found while searching for the king boletes.  Tomorrow I shall conclude this mushroom extravaganza with some older pictures showing a greater variety.

Just some mushrooms growing along a branch. I didn’t bother trying to identify them.

Again, another neat specimen that I didn’t identify. Love the scales/shaggyness!

Ah yes, the Amanita Muscaria, the “Alice In Wonderland” mushroom. Bright red with marks. Slightly poisonous, allegedly semi-hallucinogenic. I figure if you want to hallucinate on mushrooms, go find some cow patties and eat something well-known for its “medicinal” use. The nice thing about these from a king bolete hunter’s perspective is that, if you see one or more of these, you should expect to find some boletes nearby too. I don’t think they compete, but I’ve almost always found one or more boletes within 20 feet of an amanita muscaria.

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On The Road: Responsible Mushroom HarvestingPost + Comments (10)

Good morning everyone,

Thanks TaMara for filling in Monday and Tuesday. What with my crazy life right now and missing my laptop while Dell fixes it again, I really appreciate it. Hopefully she’ll return with more pictures soon.

In early August, I bolted to Colorado to hunt mushrooms and have a few days to myself before life got very complicated (house hunting, buying, moving, getting a house fixed up and rented, etc.).

I had limited success. The whole drive there, I had dreams of coming back with 30 (dare I dream – 50!) pounds of good boletus edulis to cook, share, and dry. My haul was more like 4 pounds which was shared and eaten. This was due to my being about 10 days later than ideal and to the recent dry conditions on the mountain I was searching, so I had to break out my old-school “wildcatting” tactics which paid off.

It was a great day adventure, and I’m glad I went, even for just that experience. It had been 5 years since I’d wandered the mountains at 11,000 feet looking for delights, and I know that I will do what I can to be able to go next year, hopefully better-timed with the rains and peak opportunity. Life is short, and it’s just so much fun and a great way to plug into nature while hopefully having a “gold rush”. I was only gasping for air occasionally, and I know if it had been a good year, I would have had to take many rest breaks because of all the running around.

High altitude treasure hunt hint – bring a disposable oxygen can which is cheap satisfaction and relief from that burn of too-little oxygen. Also, do extra aerobic exercise for a few weeks before going to high altitude to optimize heart-lung state. And lose weight.

The boletus edulis, known as the King Bolete, Cepe, Steinpilz, or Porcini, is a large, delicious mushroom that grows in many forest areas in the US and Europe. To my experience and knowledge, they are found in the Rockies as far south as New Mexico, and up into Canada. I know that they are not as rare in moister areas and a friend has some land in Alaska that has them in abundance. They grow in cooperation with pine trees. They are tasty, large, and very fun to find.

On the day I went, I ran into a few people – a Polish lady looking for her husband (a common occurrence as you often separate to cover more territory when things aren’t lush) who spoke no English but was impressed with my haul and a nice couple from near Alamosa looking for mountain raspberries which were about two weeks out, they said. I explained what I was doing and delivered a brief intro to boletes and gave them a nice medium-sized specimen to take home and cook. They extolled the shaggy mane mushroom they collected near home, but I assured them that this was even better.

Ok, enough text, let’s go with some pictures. These are all from this year’s trip. I’ll share some more tomorrow and then older photos Friday.

The first find of the day and it was the biggest. One issue with large mushrooms is that they are targets for flies to lay eggs. So once you get bigger than this, they are much more out of the ground and bigger targets.

Let’s just say that I’m not Donald Trump and I’m not Dr J, so this is a large freaking mushroom. I didn’t weigh it individually, but when I first cut it, I expect it weighed 1.5 pounds. I kept them cool on the drive back East days later, but they did lose some moisture.

Another, older bolete.  Notice the chipmunk nibbles.  Chipmunks and squirrels are quite fond of them. I’ve been screamed out countless times by chippies for stealing their treasure, and I once saw a squirrel bound away with a small but perfect mushroom in its mouth, like a cartoon.

This mushroom was almost rotten and fell apart when I touched it. Not good eating!

This was the final haul of the day. That was some very, very good eating. Fresh boletes, sliced thick like a steak, sauteed in some butter with garlic and onion, salt and pepper, it’s close to perfection. Note the color of the top right mushroom – that is the ideal color.  Once it’s seared into your soul, it’s hard to mistake other mushrooms for this one; I can see that color peeking out from leaves or other tree litter from farther away than you’d believe!

Have a great day everyone, we’ll re-convene on the morrow.

On The Road, Now With Mushrooms!Post + Comments (11)