Who needs a Hunter when you've got a Gatherer?

The Mission: Find Chanterelles (Or other acceptably edible fungal bioforms)!

The weather lately has been the sort that makes some people long for fall. Ethereal fog sodden mornings burning off into crisp sunny afternoons, the sun foraying through diminished leaf cover, soft winds plucking golden leaves from maples, alders and cottonwoods... You get the idea. Its also perfect for mushrooooms! Oh yeah. I can hear my mother's voice several years ago gently cautioning me not to consume the pretty fungi I am so fascinated by. Duh! mom. But guess what? We ate some. And we're going to eat some more!

Sometimes I wonder what my mother thinks I do. She probably imagines that I go gallivanting off into the wilderness in my small clothes with nothing but a bottle of whiskey to fend off bigfoot; eat wild mushrooms, berries, duel with bears and roll my hypothermic blue body in scat. No really mom, I tiptoe cautiously through the trees, singing, so the bears will respect my territory. Promise. Pinky swear.

Mushrooms are strange and wonderful things. Scaly, slimy, velvety, brown, white, beige, pink, orange, red, midnight purple, earthy, fishy... And mysterious to most of us. I feel I have to say this; never eat a mushroom unless you are sure of what it is. Really truly 100% positive of its identity. 

A fatally lovely aminita, siren of the wild mushrooms

 I don't know what the large majority of these are, so enjoy the pretty pictures...

 Extra spiny puffball as yet unpuffed above
Coral fungi below. Below left is I think called a cat's tongue because of the texture of the gills.

A hooded false morel of some sort above on the right

A little bolete below

Some sort of Russula or milk cap maybe on the left, little cup fungus above





Angel wings! Beautiful delicate looking fungus with a vaguely earthy flavor. The first wild mushrooms we ate!

 Cracked red bolete (I think) on the left. The light was too perfect to pass up for this typical handful-of-angelwings shot

 Teeny tiny cup fungus

 Dinner platter sized shelf fungus

 Velvety whoknowswhat on the left. Another false morel, but an edible variety (genus Helvella)

This crazy mushroom was hollow from this little hole on the top through the length of the stalk. Marvelous!

 A collection of more unkowns

Nooksack Falls (natural fish passage barrier!)

As luck would have it, it was not I who first found
chanterelles, despite my enthusiasm and several hours of searching. It was Brandon. This makes plenty of sense, that ultra cautious (my voice of reason in times of Darwinian stupidity) Otter would be the one to bring home a load of wild fungus one bright fall day with a grin on his face. As it happens, he does research on arbuscular mycorrizhal fungi, and just went to a little conference in OREGON to present his project. Want to take a crack at who might have been his audience? Oh that's right... a bunch of funky fungus foraging mycologists! Lobster, hedgehog (see above!) and chanterelle mushrooms!