Cruise while the iron is cool!

[alexpgp]

With no assignments breathing down my neck, I decided to extend a trip to the store to include a ride down what I call "Glory Road." (Yes, I give names to all of my mushrooming venues. Shoot me.)

Shiloh was in the car with me, and it was truly a glorious day, even if the condition of Piedra Road has deteriorated to the point where it's almost undrivable from the first cattle guard up to McManus Road, where I took the right fork.

I really didn't expect to find any mushrooms today, but figured I'd at least have a data point for what the forest looks like after a series of wet days in early August. As I approached the Hinsdale county line, I suddenly spied a familiar orange shape along the side of the road.

It was a bolete, I can confidently say, of the Leccinum genus. I stopped the car, let Shiloh out to run around (she was a very good girl and came back when I called her), and harvested the mushroom.

I tried to contain my enthusiasm, because I've had days where the haul for the entire day was exactly one mushroom. The fellow I harvested could very well have been one of that extreme minority of fungi that never get the word to stand down and decide to spring out of the ground anyway, sometimes a week or two in advance of the main eruption. I got back in the car, and ran across more mushrooms along the side of the road.


There were lots of boletes out there, and the ones I saw readily were not the first ones out of the ground. There were a number of old, crumbly mushrooms, too.

At first, all I could see were the aspen boletes (which are pretty noticeable, with their orange caps), but soon, I saw other mushrooms as well. Here's a group of Suillis mushrooms not far from the road bed.



I harvested enough mushrooms over about a two-mile stretch of road that instead of driving the entire length of the road into Pagosa Springs proper, I turned around and retraced my path back to Piedra Road. Once home, I took stock of what I had collected.


I cannot seem to find the dehydrator that's always underfoot mostly in the garage. I may just have to dry the mushrooms the old fashioned way, using needle and thread.

The season is on!

Cheers...

Comments

[vuzh.livejournal.com]

one of that extreme minority of fungi that never get the word to stand down and decide to spring out of the ground anyway

I like that visual! :)

Nice haul! Your Suillus looks like S. lakei, purported to be the best edible of the genus, although it's the only Suillus I've ever tried. I've cooked them twice, the first time it was very pleasant and the second time the whole batch turned into slime. You get what you pay for, I guess. I think the trick is to not overcook them, and to try to dry them out as much as possible before cooking. I wonder if dehydrating them or a little bit before cooking might be a good strategy? It's probably worth a try. Salting before cooking might also be worth trying.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I need to stop harvesting mushrooms with my eyes. Most of the larger specimens, despite looking fresh, were too wormy to bother with.

My friend Feht, who introduced me to mushrooming, happened to rent a house that turned one, one August, to be sitting on top of a Suillis patch. Galina and I stopped by his place just after he had harvested them and his mom had cleaned most of the haul and then threaded them, cut up, on a heavy thread. These strings of drying mushrooms were festooned all through the house's living room and dining room, and the technique definitely got my attention.

I'm a big believer in drying mushrooms, ever since a panful of wet chanterelles turned to mush on me.

Cheers...

[connie]

Whoa, I've never heard of this drying technique before, but it sounds clever. Thanks for sharing!