A Woods Walk (much tiny beauty)

Since I have been sick the whole month of june (with suspected parasites from my pond, still waiting for test results to come back) .... i haven't been able to really walk much in the forest. I have been resting my body alot. The anti parasite herbal remedies i took made me half better, so today i went for a walk to see what the forest floor would behold. Cause if you look real close, there is always something going on - no matter how tiny the patch of ground you choose.
I found wild red bee balm, and mannnnnny mushrooms pushing their way up from the dirt...
Mushrooms hold some kind of magic, and no i don't mean the hallucinating and poisoning your enemy kind.... i mean, the way they always look like something in a fairy tale. Always manage to be beautiful, mysterious, and a sign of nature at it's best.
I saw alot of these tiny white flowers, which hang like bells or rain drops... or a saddness that is stunning in it's beauty.

I always get supremely excited when i see these mushrooms that look like underwater coral! I love when sea and land are so similar.
Tiny red wildflower.... growing near the red bee balm, but is not bee balm. Just a disguise.
XoxOXOX

Help Me ID this Mushroom!

I found these big brown mushrooms growing out of a log that had been inoculated with edible mushroom spores about 2 years ago...
only problem is, i wasn't the one who stuck the spores in there and I have no idea which types of mushrooms they might be.... or if they are from the spores at all. The logs were already here at the Luck Cabin when i moved in.

Can anyone help me figure out, if this is an edible mushroom?
here are some other viewpoints... side and underneath, showing the gills....
The brown color is very rich and healthy looking... these mushrooms are also really large and round - thick (but not as thick & heavy as a portabella).

XoXoxoOX

Morel Mushrooms (again! in Video...)

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i could not resist going back for more. I ate them up in a stir fry... soooo good!
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xxoxox

Good Morels (mushrooms!)

On my way back from the 'stairway to ramp heaven' I made a foraging find that made the day seem like it was born of magic, unicorns and rainbows... i found some morels! And not the kind I have to kneel down a pray for, but the kind I kneel down and pluck from the earth... Huge wild morel mushrooms. The most morels I have ever held, the most I have ever seen, the biggest most beautiful... morels the size of a f-en pine cone! we literally stumbled upon the patch of morels when walking back through the forest and (not) trespassing past someone's house... (omg, i stole someone's morels--- does this mean deep down i have no morals?) I did take the mushrooms, and shook them all around the area where i plucked a few... trying to spread spores in what seemed to be a perfect environment for growing them- there were sooo many! I made sure to leave many morels growing too, so spores could take wind and make many more.

WHEN I GOT HOME WITH MY MORELS :::::

i know it can be futile to attempt to grow morel mushrooms on purpose, but it's always worth a try. I wrapped the mushrooms in a cheese cloth and took them into the woods - shaking the cloth lightly to let spores loose into the air.

and my second trick, in hopes to grow my own... i filled a bowl full of spring water, let the morels soak for an hour or so --- then i took the spore filled water outside and spread it around in spots I thought they'd enjoy propogating.

THEN I COOKED Um' UP! :::::::

mmmmmm

• I cut each one down the middle (after rinsing it) , added ramps (wild leeks), parsley and rosemary to a pan.


• Alot of moisture came from the mushrooms, which i drained off twice. Once the water was drained off enough, i added some oil and let them cook on low/medium for about 7-10 minutes (until darker brown.)


• I put it over (gluten free) rice pasta with olive oil and pink salt!

SooOOOooOOo delicious, it felt like a sin.

XoxoxoX

Mushroom-splosion! Help me ID

These are just stunning! Mushrooms suddenly pop their beauty out from the wet forest floor, pressing up through rotten leaves, and never last very long... that kind of whimsical and short life span is exactly why so many people become fascinated by them. At least, that is part of what draws me in. Curly, smooth, colorful, half melted, looking like seashells, looking like biggie sized burger buns ----- can anyone tell me which kind of mushrooms these are? I would love to add in the labels if someone is able to help me ID them!

Xoxoxox

"Stinky Dog Claw" Mushroom (red, white and brown)

(Note: The following post is not intended for kids, cause I am gonna go off about how this thing really smells! If you haven't told your children about the other 'birds and bees' yet, don't let this be the first sex ed lesson they have...)

Walking in the woods this week has been a mushroom explosion - tons of rain, cool nights dipping into the 60's and soon 50's...and rains from last year created a wet environment perfect for spawning off more variety of mushrooms then I have ever seen. Or smelled.

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Yeah, that's right... while exploring the rainbow of fungi bursting from the forest floor I suddenly smelled something. Something almost familiar, but kinda sick too....... I looked around suspiciously, including at the person I was hiking with - then decided to announce the problem... "Something smells like cum! Do you smell it?!!" After getting a definitive "no", I looked around and said "maybe there is one of those trees here, you know, the cum trees?" Another look around and a "no".... I was just standing there inhaling over and over trying to figure it out.

About 10 feet from where we had been standing, there was this mushroom... I didn't have my camera on me and had to come back the next day to take the photos. When we originally found the funguy, it was stiff, erect and stinking... i put my face down by it and it stained the inside of my nose with a horrid smell, that was nothing short of cum on a dirty dick, on a man sleeping in a dumpster in a pile of sugar. I looked the creepy mushroom up online, and they politely say the smell is terrible, like "rotten meat" - I think that is code for man meat.

Of course, when i went back today to take pictures of this magnificent specimen, it was flaccid. but the manly smell was no less. I did notice though another 15 feet away a rotten dead animal smell....

could there be more stinky poop fingers??

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FYI: This type of mushroom is known as a "stink horn" and this variety in particular also goes by the name "elegant dog stinkhorn". Read more about them & other American Mushrooms HERE.

Xoxoxoxo PEeeewww weee

Purple, Green and Gold Mushrooms

Like the colors of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, I have been finding the most vivid amazing mushrooms this year! These are simply for ya' viewing pleasure... but if any of ya'll can actually identify them that would be awesome!

XOXOxoox

White Rose Bud Shaped Mushroom

Under some mountain laurel, popping out the wet forest floor were these white delicate flora - looking like albino rose buds. At first I wondered if it was some strange plant, a plant with no color, something from a fantasy world crossing over into my world.
I had accidently trampled one of the flower shaped heads off - and got to look at the very center....

My friend Mark (who's helping me build my donkey fence) was standing there with me, and said it was a type of mushroom! If I had been the first to discover this fungi I think I would have named it something really hardcore.... like the Angel Of Death. Or Tears Of Angels. White Lion? Have ya'll ever seen this?

Can anyone help me ID it.... i am hoping it's real name is as good as my hair band names!

Xoxoxo

Fungus Amongus

The epic snow storm back in December left a scar of white snow blanketed across every inch of ground here for nearly a month - until big warm and welcomed rains began hitting the tin roof, and dissolving the snow from the mountain ridge line first, down to the ground a few days later. The birds were happy, the pig was happy, the giant bunny was happy, and I am ecstatic to finally have a chance to see life again! Even if most of it got mashed under the weight of the snow. Yesterday I found a few spots of mushrooms and fungus actually growing, because the weather warmed up to more of a fall or spring temperature - and between the snow melting and the rain falling there was more then enough moisture to make the spores come alive!
These top three pics are all on an apple tree that was half dead, and then cracked in half and fell down during the winter hell weather. The branches and dead limb are going to make good kindling and fire starting wood. :)
This pink mushroom below was growing out the ground up in the woods. It was the only one I saw but I bet there is more!
Behind me in this next pic is something I LOVE about Big Sandy Mush - rocks will be covered in thick piles of green moss along streams, some so thick it's like nature's very own soft carpet. I have found gigantic rocks completely covered in it in the sun, perfect to lay down on and rest comfortably on the cushy pad of green. There is moss all over western north carolina, but this area seems to be the most abundant I have ever seen - giving it a magical, jungle feel. Even during the winter! I wonder if the cleaner an area the healthier the moss?
XoXo

Funny Fungi

Heres a few of the remaining Mushrooms from this month (November)... once the real cold winter comes there is not much fungi action. We have been unusually warm this November, it's felt like a nice cozy spring most of the fall - with warm sunny days and intense ground soaking rains... good conditions for some mushroom bloom. These pictured here are my favorites cause they are bunches of fun. Fun-gi, he he. ;) The pink one up top is some type of cup mushroom... while the one below here is a mushroom with a twist!
These tiny fungi's growing on the dead apple branch below really fascinated me, how they look like the spokes of a wheel on the inside. Or maybe like the fury petals of a blooming flower? It's a beautiful basic pattern that can lead the imagination to so many places and inventions (and ya'll know how I am all about sum' biomimicry!)
XoXo

Growing On The Forest Floor

It's beautiful from far away, and just as breathtaking close up. I find myself looking at the 'bigger picture' in my emotional life quite often and attempting to overlook the details... while in my physical view I am over compensating by noticing every little detail growing around me, far more then the bigger grand view. I suppose if nature was a teacher, the lesson would be there is worth in everything we see-... it's a million trillion tiny details that build up to the picture at large and each bit of the ecology counts. Emotionally or physically.
Striking patterns and colors, mushrooms and moss are especially mysterious to me. The moss growing on the stick below made criss crossing diamond shapes, with little bits of more moss right in their centers.
I was told this classic looking mushroom below may be a choice edible, can anyone give it a positive ID?
XoXo

Burger Bun Mushroom

Big rains, a cold snap, more big rains and some warm sunny days = mushrooms! These big guys were growing under all the dense bamboo and I thought they looked like yummy burger buns! I don't know how to identify many mushrooms (except morels) and was wondering if any of my fungi friends out there knew what type this is? Cause if this is edible I am going to make a sandwich out of it. ;)
They are very large, the round part was almost the size of my hand... big mushrooms are exciting!
This last pic shows the white gunky web like stuff under the leaves that the mushrooms grow from, I like that they grow from something that looks like a spider & slug made it together.
XoXo