Hood Canal

I went on a mushroom hunt with my 8 year old today. My husband was kind enough to babysit most of the day. It was raining too hard to take the baby. I hope to go mushroom hunting again tomorrow with both girls.

I found one older matsutake and one that had been chewed on by something. We also found what I think are Oyster Mushrooms (first picture) and we found what I think are lactarius deliciosus (second picture). We are hoping to eat the unknown ones but are waiting on spore prints and email verification before we give them a try.

I got to give my new rain gear a good test on Thanksgiving day and it worked out well. But my boots are still not waterproof. I am going to return my boots to REI in December when I have to go to Tacoma anyway.

We were tip toeing through a park that had a sign in the entrance that said "no mushroom picking" I tend to ignore signs like that. If I obeyed a no trespassing sign in my neighbor hood I never would have found my prized chanterelle spot. The spot is on public enough land but the bridge to get to it is on private land.

Anyway while tip toeing through the Russulales I spotted another human doing the same. She showed no fear so I also showed no fear. She said to me "We are crazy huh?" (Because we were out in the rain and cold) I said yep.. She then peered into my daughters basket that was filled with all kinds of mystery mushrooms.. she basically picks every new mushroom type she finds and then take to them home to try to identify.

I asked this person "having any luck?"

She said "I only found one old one."

So she knew that we knew that she knew that we were, that is we all knew that we were there for one reason only. That reason was matsutake.

Thanks to Irene on Usenet I think I have these narrowed down a bit more. The oysters are Panellus serotinus as I had suspected. The milk cap is probably L. deliciosus var. olivaceosordidus