It is with great pleasure I start a new blog post with the title "The Mushroom Season Begins!"
March through late September I am occupied by my sun garden. I start plants from seed, watch them grow and then harvest their bounty. This past growing season was filled with new plants like weld, new planting boxes, and new and improved dye classes.
We had a long, hot and dry summer in Oakland and I wondered what Fall would bring. Voila! Here we are a few days from Thanksgiving and the past few weeks have been colder with rain. Needless to say, this is perfect weather for mushrooms.
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| Ysolda inside a redwood! |
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| Kristine and Cleo at Samuel P. Taylor |
My hunting this year begins with a trip to Samuel P. Taylor State Park. Kristine,
Ysolda (my friend visiting CA from Scotland), Cleo and I trekked into the lush forest to find very
little happening with the fungi. The above mushroom pictures are of Trametes
versicolor growing on a log. I decided not to pick them because they looked sooo pretty.
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| Me and Cleo, notice I have my mushroom knife with me! |
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| Seals at Chimney Rock at Point Reyes |
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| Point Reyes at sunset, on the far left you can see Ysolda taking pictures of the seals in the cove below |
We also explored Point Reyes but found more wildlife than fungi. It was great fun to see the elephant seals lounging on the beach and playing in the nearby coves. We even saw a newborn calf learn to stand while its mother, a giant black and white dairy cow, licked it clean. And of course the sunsets are always amazing!
My next hunting excursion combined a light run with my friend Ysolda through Redwood Regional Park in the Oakland Hills. Cleo and Kristine also came along but decided to walk. It was early November and there was not much to be seen! I came home disappointed, but knowing the season was on the verge of hitting. I didn't even bring my camera!
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| Dyer's Polypore with knife in the picture for scale, Phaeolus schweinitzii, btw nice knife! |
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| Oysters on log |
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| Sulphur tufts - this mushroom gives a beautiful bright yellow |
Then came a magical day trip to a ranch in Bodega where we source wool for the AVFKW store. I mentioned to the shepherdess, Hazel, that I wanted to scout around the property and asked if it was okay with her. Not only was it okay, but one of the locals who live on the land trust agreed to show us around. While we waited for Kristine to sort out the yarn pick up with Hazel, Ysolda and I poked around close by. Suprisingly, not only 15 feet from the car we found about 30 little earthstars growing happily under some redwoods. It was great fun to find them, the hunting had begun! I have never dyed wool with Earthstars but the potential was very exciting to say the least. As we gathered the stars under the pine duff, our friendly mushroom guide named Jay arrived in his small pickup truck. He smiled and remembered meeting me the year before; we had a lovely exchange about mushrooming and the possibilities of the nearby forest.
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| earthstar mushroom with Ysolda's hand for scale |
Jay is a very sweet fellow and on that day he was wearing a wide rimmed sun hat, sandals, and deerskin pants (that I assume he made!). The back of his truck was already filled with dyers polypores, pumpkins, and various other nature items. He told us that "up the hill" was the best spot for the polypores. So Ysolda and I squished into the small cabin of the pickup truck and started our very bumby off road ride up the hill. Along the way, the Bodega Pasture's sheep greeted us by lifting up their heads to watch us pass, they were very busy eating! Jay stopped along a slope filled with pine trees and there we found numerous polypores. We even found a few sulfur tufts, oyster mushrooms, and russulas. We spent the next thirty minutes with our eyes skimming the forest floor. We had so many polypores, our arms were full! We left that day with a great bounty.
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| Amanita |
When we left bodega we traveled an hour up HWY 1 to Salt Point State Park. It was already very late but we had 20 minutes of hunting time. I plan to return in a few weeks with more time and more daylight! Above is a panther amanita I found just before I hit the parking lot to go home.
I know what you're wondering... what I did with all of those dyer's polypore? I taught a
Mushroom Dyeing class at A Verb for Keeping Warm that weekend using two pounds of the harvest. To learn more sign up for the next class in December!
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| Polypores on my porch waiting for the dyepot |
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| Dye pot with polypore soup |
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| Class samples drying outside |
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| Shade card of polypore on four different yarns |
Even more exciting is the seasonal and limited edition yarn I will be selling at AVFKW. Look for it when you're in the store! These were all dyed using the dyer's polypore.
