It is winter in Anacortes! Really.... I was working late last night on
the Dungeness crab fishery and I had all my long johns on, a warm hat, hot tea, and I was still
freezing. I feel like it has been years since I've seen the sun. The
sun came out for about an hour today and we put on reggae music, had
beer and brats outside, and then were chased back inside because clouds came
back and it started to rain, again. *Sigh* I remember shorts. I
remember t-shirts.
Anyway - last weekend Jay and I took an ethnobotany class right in our backyard (the Anacortes Community Forest Lands). Jay's friend and co-worker, Denise, led the class - here she is holding up a leaf of giant skunk cabbage while explaining to us all the traditional uses of the plant. We learned so much! Many leaves were consumed, berries ingested, and knowledge expanded. It was a fantastic way to spend a rainy day in the forest. This is June folks - does it look like it? Ergh.
Cute little frog on a skunk cabbage leaf. Now whenever we go for walks in the forest in our backyard we can eat even more plants!
And moving on to the real fun! Agaricus mushrooms! This is a family of mushrooms that we have not been brave enough to branch out into yet because there are a few called the "lose your lunch bunch" that we didn't want to mess with. However, this (pictured above) forced us to break out our awesome shroom key and figure out what I found and if we could eat it. I spotted these gleaming white mushrooms on my drive to work and I was forced to pull over and pick a few to bring home. I was immediately excited because I knew that the edible Agaricus were supposed to be amazing and smell almondy. These fit that description from the start!
Here is Jay (and Lester) at work trying to key out this mushroom. We felt pretty confident that they were the giant horse mushroom, a species of
Agaricus shrooms. After three hours of internet searches, books, and lots of sniffing we decided to eat these puppies. By this I mean we both had tiny little bites of some cooked mushrooms. And waited until the next morning to see how we felt. Considering that they were the best tasting mushroom I've ever had, I was really hoping I felt O.K. the next morning. And we both did! I lost sleep over all the mushrooms I had left behind....what if they mowed the lawn? What if someone else got them? I left for work early, pulled over, and ran around like an excited kid getting all but a few of the mushrooms (ya gotta leave some behind for next year). Then I proceeded to try and work that day. But I couldn't. I was like a kid waiting for Santa. I was so excited to get home and eat them!
The motherload.
A button, older adult (?), and our spore print
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