Hey, this is Sue up in Cambridge. Just wanted to let those of you headed up north know that we are finding lots of meadow mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and even hericium or lion's mane. While it has been cold, that is good, because nothing has any bugs! So if you are on your way up for snowshoeing, fishing, or just wanting a drive, keep your eyes peeled in the pastures and on the cottonwoods. Stay warm!

Oregon trip. Nov 5th-7th

Hello Kevin S here. Click on the image to get a bigger view. Wendy and I went to the Oregon Coast Range last week-end for a visit to relatives and for a last chance at some Chanterelles. I brought a sample of the Sparassis that I found to the meeting. We found more Chanterelles than I care to process again. I worked two evenings cutting and cooking Chanterelles. The Lepiotas are up in town go get them.

Last Trip of the Year? Maybe

Hopefully Reta will edit this post and add some of her pictures and comments.

Okay, Okay. Give us a break. We were not finding many mushrooms, it was cold and well, we got to playing with color. Between snow showers the sun bursts lit up the colors spectacularly. Just fun to be out in nature all her glory.

Sometimes we are looking up. Haha. How about some hackberries? Edible, but not particularly tasty and mostly seed.

I think this is , Hygrophorus bakerensis, but Reta doesn't think so. She is usually right. Could this be a Clitocybe? The cap is viscus

We think this is Gomphus fluccosus

Reta and I venture forth into the wilds of Mann Cr. drainage north of Weiser. The last trip of the year was very much like the first trip of the year--found few mushrooms, snow and sunshine. Notice the snow on the hood of the pickup. The laughing is because this was about the fourth time trying to master the timer. Wow! it finally worked.

Duck Lake, McCall

Hiked into Duck Lake off the Lick Cr. Rd out of McCall Oct. 13. Scenery was beautiful, catching of fish was lousy and the mushrooms were frozen solid. Might be too late now for mushrooming in the high country. Anybody have a response? Since I took no pictures of the mushrooms nor did I gather any here is a picture of the lake.---Bill Betts

My Hedgehog photo's

Bottom view

Top view of a huge one.

Part of the motherload.

Hello

This is Kevin S. Here are some pictures of the Hedgehogs (Hydnum repandum) I found up off of Paddy Flats road. I was able to cook and freeze over 9 packages of hogs. Each package had 2 cups of uncooked hogs. Sweeeet.

Chanterelles found 10/09/2010

Jaz making sure that those are the wrong ones to pick.

Up close.

Yummy the can is for scale.

The good and the bad side by side.

Good and bad.

Good on the left.

From below. Good on the left.

Hello

This Kevin S. reports my finds. Two weeks ago Wendy and I found a large crop of Hedgehog mushrooms Hydnum repandum off of the Paddy Flats access. This weekend I found a good crop of Chanterelles Cantharellus in the McCall area. I even found one young King Bolete and several overripe ones. Don't give up the last rain really helped them out. See the photos above. I have serveral pictures where the Yellow Chanterelle is compared side by side with the Scaly Chanterelle Gomphus floccosus which isn't edible.

Fall Foray Snapshots

Uhh, uh, no, Sue, Really... I just wanted to tell you how good dinner was last night. Yea, really, it was really good. My roommate seemed to have a bit of indigestion, no, no. I think he was feeling pretty good. Good dinners, breakfasts, yep, everything was really good.

These are several pictures I (Bill Betts) took at our fall foray. I hope you enjoy. If you have a need for proper chronology start at the end of this blog entry and work up. That is the way I should have entered the pictures, but, I have other things that I must take the time to be perfect about. I think we had a fun time. A big thank you to Ginny for organizing, Sue for feeding us and Sir Bob for lending an aura of professionalism to the whole affair. Kathy, thanks for your hard work in identifying so many mushrooms and leading a class on how to key out mushrooms. Sorry about your car. Hope you made it home okay and everything has worked out well for you.

So all good parties must come to an end. A view of the sunset on Saturday night.

Hope and Ray contemplatng what needs to be done. You probably know that Hope and Orson authored the book on mushrooms that is the go to book for most of our members. Ray has a website for those that are interested, http://www.mnimagesonline.com/ Ray is a very fine nature photographer. Check out his site.

Andy and Jim enjoying a discussion about genetics. Well, they are a couple of genecists. Andy is from the Palouse Club.

Fran and Elinor taking a break. Elinor was our recorder. Turns out she had a pretty big job this year with some 140 identified mushrooms. Thanks, Elinor. And thanks Fran for being your usual sweet self.

Hope and Ginny relaxing. Sure is nice to have such knowledgeable people in our club for us newbies to learn a thing or two from.

Linda and Sir Bob enjoying a fine taste of ummmm....Oh, yes, McCall water. Good stuff. They seem pretty intent on enjoying that fine taste of McCall.

LaVerne and Dennie keying out some of their finds. Dennie has agreed to be my personal mentor on how to grow old gracefully. People don't come any better than this couple. I can hardly wait for the next meeting to renew our friendship. I hope that when I am 87 I am still out hunting mushrooms, enjoying it and not complaining about my aches and pains like Dennie.

Jim attended the Palouse Club's spring foray this past spring. He must have left a very good impression because I counted 8 Palouse Club members in attendance at our fall foray. I can tell you that their intent was more on collecting edible King Boletes than the science of mushrooms. Hard to argue that intention.

There is something about finding a prime King Bolete that brings out the joy in a person. You wonder why I like to hunt mushrooms with Reta? Well besides the fact that she has a great personality and makes delicious sandwiches, she has great eyes. Uhhh, eyesight that is. She found this King Bolete not a foot off the trail and that was on our way BACK to the trailhead.

The pileas about the size of a dime. So fragile that it split into many parts when I tried to pick it. The stipe really that green blue color. So dainty and I don't know the name.

Amanita anyone. Found these about 100 feet off the Twenty Mile Lakes Trail.

Reta picking a mushroom

Larry and Corolynn in rapt attention of the word from Mike.

The call to lunch did not go unheeded.

Colleen, Ann and Wendell comparing notes and strategies?

This table represents one day of collecting. The table will be crowded by Sunday morning.

Corolynn and Larry waking up to the second day of the foray.

This is what Jim found.

Carolyn and Jim looking over his find. Ray Marquart gliding through the background.

Elise was so excited by her treasures. She has a sack full of young King Boletes, heavy and hardly touched by the worms. She was walking near Hartley Creek about a half mile above Brundage Res. when she actually saw a King Bolete floating down the creek. Don't know how that happened. God giving a message to Elise? She picked that one out of the creek and then immediately found seven more. Some people. She also found the Chantrelles the next day.

Jason, Reta, Corolynn and Larry on his hands and knees digging out his huge find--a King Bolete. Jason, Corolynn and Larry are from the Palouse Club. Larry was rightfully very proud of his find, but it was really well worm-eaten. He ended up having to throw it away. Most of the boletes we found were within just ten to twenty feet of the road. How convenient. We sure walked a lot of miles for those boletes:) Really. We found them coming back to the pickup just a few feet from where we parked.

The way we started the mornings off at this year's foray.

Fall Foray..where are the posts??

As the chief cook, but not bottlewasher thanks to the help of all of the members, I didn't get to go very far for the foray...but from what I saw it was great. The pre-foray road trip that Bill, Reta and I took paid off for those participants...They were in bolete heaven. Thanks to newcomers Jacob and Elise for sharing, prepping and preparing the boletes for appetizers. Thanks to everyone who contributed their edibles for the menu! We had lactarius deliciousa potato soup, boletes in white sauce to put over the baked herbed chicken breasts, and chanterelle alfredo. What a great menu we came up with. I am forgetting one edible, I think...
Members found a "new to me" spot for chanterelles. I am eagerly awaiting fall rains to see if they will flush again, and will try to find the spot.
Mushroom wise, I think we were over 140 specimens. They were in great shape, and there was a huge variety. With over 30 participants, including several from the Palouse club, there were lots of eyes looking, which probably helped our specimen count.
I am looking forward to a post from a member who can put in some cool pictures!

golf courses

We have found a lot of mushrooms on the golf courses. On falcon crest robin hood course are numerous mushrooms. On one sand bunker we saw a huge bunch of shaggy manes growing right on the edge of the bunkers and into the bunker. On the fairways and on the sides are numerous, I think, meadow mushrooms. One of the trees on falcon crest had a huge bunch of oyster mushrooms. On Warm Springs golf course we also found a lot of meadow mushrooms.
Gar Lorain, Boise, ID

Anyone interested. Between Victory and Amity on the east side of the road on the common lawn areas are numerous shaggy manes. The same is true on Columbia between Cloverdale and 5 mile again on the common areas to the south side of the road.

Gar Lorain
Boise, ID

I found lots of these growing on the Falcon Crest golf course and Ann Morrison Park recently 9/10/10. The young ones look like golf balls from a few feet away. The young

ones have their gills completely covered with a veil. The spores are chocolate brown. I think they are horse mushrooms. Any comments? I have also discovered lots of shaggy manes in a lawn on Columbia Road this morning.

Gar Lorain

McCall Scouting Party

Sue Poland led Bill Betts and I (reta) on a scouting party to see if there were mushrooms in "them thair hills" of Mc Call. Yep! It was a beautiful day and we found many interesting and several yummy species. It has also rained and possibly snowed in this area today so the foray should be a total success! See you there!