The Rain Brings Many Gifts! Just Not For Running.

Weekend running.

Check out the tornado damage!!! 

Remember that Tornado I mentioned in the previous post?   Well check out this damage!   Good thing we were in the HyVee parking lot at the time. 

Just kidding!   This building was scheduled to be demo-ed  and they have been working on it all week.  Still,  A pretty good visual  if I wanted to promote false news.   I should have been a journalist!

Tornadoe puffball.

Still fresh! 

But back to the actual point of this post.   Last Monday, just before the storm,  I stumbled upon several Puffballs growing along the trail.   We found several more the next day and I cooked them up in an omlette.  Very tasty!   I liked how they changed color as I fried them up.   Normally they taste like whatever you cook them with and have the consistency of a soft cheese.  I added a couple of small Boletes I found in the yard.  ( Our yard started to sprout a few more Field Boletes again.  Yeah!)

Chop chop.  Lets eat it.

Pretty yellow color when cooked.

And then I started thinking....    Summer is almost over and the fall Mushrooms are supposed to start up.   I wonder if Cheryl and I should start looking for differant species.  I could not wait to head back into the woods to see what else we could find.  Surely, we should be able to  find something new!

Time for some Fall mushrooms!

Milkcaps in a cluster.

But our work days have been long and exhausting.   And our weekend plans looked like they were going to be dashed along the jagged rocks of life.  The storms and heavy rains have been predicted all three days this weekend. 

The Rain begins for the weekend.

Cheryl runs anyway!

Flood warnings are sent out every six hours it seems.  We woke up this morning to rain and thunder.   Cheryl chose to run anyway... because she has a "problem."    And that means I have to follow alongside her with my bike.  Because that is what "love" demands...I guess.

Path is damp in places.

Brings out the green!

The trail was cut short in several places due to high water.   But one of the things we DID enjoy was discovering several new clusters of Mushrooms.   It appears that the heavy rains sent some serious adrenelin into the mushroom patches!   Everything was HUGE!  Numerous!  And bursting with moisture... 

Close up of large Milkcap.

Some places are flooded.

There were new Golden oysters growing from the middle of one of the flooded areas.  So we could not harvest those.   However,  New Milkies were popping up in HUGE clusters. 

Check out that size!

And the reason why they call it Milkcap

The mushroom itself is as big as my hand.  I picked a few and brought them home to Identify.  I am not familiar enough with them to know what they look like fresh.   Yet.

This specimen is probably old, but still bleeds white latex.

A Large Bolete...past its prime.

Another one being consumed by white mold.

One of the most exciting and heartbreaking parts was discovering the Boletes.   I have been trying to find these guys all Summer when we first discovered them last year.   But they have been so elusive,  only poping out in the late spring and leaving the white  mushy piles of the mold to suggest they were missed. 

We found a couple of fresh ones.

Check out those white pores! 

These Boletes are MUCH larger than field.

Today, we found several huge ones that had already been consumed by the white mold.  I know Boletes do not seem to last long.  But having to race against the mold and the rain is another thing.   Cheryl and I managed to find two specimens to bring home that looked fresh and had not been consumed yet.  I placed them in the basket as well.

A Large Amanita

A number of Amenitas were also there.  The water helped push them up and cause them to explode!  These Amanitas are normally large to begin with.  But seeing them super saturated and exploding with water was something else.    They are similar to Boletes in that they share the same trees systems.   They both benefit the trees with their mycylium.

A Baretoothed Brittlegill.

Brittlegills with Boletesand Amanitas.

In the same patch, I found a few brittle gills.    A guy from Work handed me a ziplock bag filled with these brittlegills.  I was not sure if any were edible.  And I was not sure how old any of the ones he provided were, so I passed on eating them.  These two, however, looked pretty fresh.  In the basket they go!

A Large spectacular Parisol Mushroom

Sliding Veil,  Still poisonous!

Yesterday,  Cheryl and I found several other species just around the Pearson campus and along the trail.   This wonderful specimen of the Parisol Mushroom was the object of my facination all day on Friday.   I picked one after work to bring it home to ID it.   I thought it was an Ammenita Muscaria,   but the features matched the Parisol mushroom.   Still poisonous!  But very striking and pretty.

Blewits!   Check out those Purple Gills!

And that rosy top.  

Cheryl discovered a patch of Blewits!   They are edible, but, once again, I was not able to identify which ones were new or old.   We took a couple of the freshest looking specimens home.   Check out those gills!   Purplish/grey in color.  They drop a pink spore print.  I know that many purple mushrooms are edible, but I will hold off on this one until I am certain.   These guys appear in the fall as well.  Looks like the Fall Mushroom Season is under way.  I can't wait until I find those Shaggy Caps.

Good to eat, but some people are not fond of the taste.   I will have to see for myself. 

Tends to look like the picture. 

The Large Bolete.   What could it be?

Once we arrived home,  I set out to narrow down the options on what our finds were.  The Bolete could be one of four possibilities.

If it IS bitter, I'll know when I taste it.

I waied all Summer to find this guy.. 

  I did take a taste and did not find the flesh to be bitter, so there is a possibility that the bitter bolete is out of the running.   The other possibilities are all edible.  Cheryl is thinking it is the Pine Bolete whereas I think it is the Penny Bun.   I will have to wait 24 hours to sample it....  Because.

Check out the margins of the Baretooth.

Brittlegill.  Russala family. 

I fried up and tested the Brittlegill.   Specifically Identified as the Bare-toothed Brittlegill.  Frying up a test sample is the worst way to "taste" them.   My main objective is to make sure I don't die.... or get sick.   So, the fewer things to mix up with the test subject, the better.   I was impressed how well they held on to their color!   Facinating!   This could add color to any future dish if I manage to live through the night.  I am very excited! 

Keeps that rich red color through frying!

Also... the flavor!   AWESOME!   The book says they taste like roasted almonds.   I don't think they tasted like that, but they did have a wonderful nutty flavor.  I would campare it to english walnuts.   With the flavor lingering after you eat them. The book says they are a choice edible... and I believe it.  There are so many of these brittle gills in the forest that we have been passing over all summer long.  Mostly because they were so small. ( similar to the field boletes that we DO pick up and take home.)  If things work out,  I will enjoy adding these to our collections as we continue to forage.

Milkcaps are edible! 

A "fresher" specimen.

Lastly, ( sorry to make this so long.... so much to say when you do not have the Internet at home.) The Milkycap.   There is no doubt in my mind that it IS a Milkycap of some kind.  I just don't know for sure what kind specifically.

Not sure if the large ones are too old to enjoy.   Or if the false ones are bad.  Experiments required.

 Since there are several that might not be very edible,  I need to narrow things down and cook up a few test batches.  I don't want to sample to many differant species at a time since I need to make sure which is which.  That means that the large Bolete and Milkycap are going to have to wait.   Given the  limited access to these two,  I hope that I will not have to wait an additional year before I can enjoy them again.   But all you probably need is one....  given their giant size.

Three days of growth on Blue Oysters

Cheryl is ready to sample them.

I should also note that today marks the first day Cheryl and I ate a mushroom that we grew ourselves.    The Blue Oyster Mushroom that Cheryl bought as a kit on my birthday, finally yielded a cluster.   I did not take the final picture, but safe to say that the mushroom is a cluster larger than my hand.  Cheryl chopped it up and added a few others to top our flat bread pizza.   Yumm!   She also used one of the few Heirloom Tomatoes we have left.  Cooking with he food you grew yourself is surprisingly satisfying.   I'm  one shaggy beard away from being a Hippy or Hillbilly living off the grid!   Hopefully, the skills I'm aquiring now will help me if that zombie appocolypse ever happens.   

Mushroom Medly on Flatbread. Yumm! 

Thanks for stopping in and suffering through my rant about mushrooms.   If there is one thing I miss about the internet, it is that I am no longer able to freely blog when I want to.  Ah well,  Small price to pay I guess.  And the money saved is to  great!