Mushrooms, ho!

[alexpgp]

In a world gone appointment-mad, it is trendy to talk about making an appointment "with yourself" that brooks no interruptions from the rest of one's life. (Somewhere, I recall reading about some fine folk who took the concept further, penciling in time to spend with their kids. I find that an odd application of the advice, but I digress...)

So despite the fact I have several hot files waiting for my tender affection, I decided to take a couple of hours off this morning and do something that had absolutely nothing to do with work.

Basically, I egged Drew into letting Galina and me take a drive this morning in his Honda (the Ford just isn't a mountain-road car). My purpose was to see the state of things out on "Fourmile Road" (which winds its way through about 30 miles of back country around Pagosa Springs). The year before we left for Houston - that'd be 1995 - the conditions were right and just about the entire road was lined with Shaggy Mane mushrooms (Coprinus comatus) at about this time of year, give or take a couple of weeks.

I didn't expect to see any mushrooms, really. The purpose of the trip was more to get out of the house and focus my eyeballs on something further away than a computer monitor, if for just a couple of hours.

But I did see some mushrooms. Not a whole lot, but some. Moreover, I was so excited to see them, I harvested almost all of them before it occurred to me to record the joyous occasion:



The photo shows two relatively young mushrooms on the left, with a third specimen on the right that has pretty much finished its cycle of consuming its cap (the result is a black liquid - actually a suspension of the mushroom's spores - that characterizes the mushroom's other common name: Inky Cap).

We got home shortly after 11 am and proceeded to have a brunch consisting of sunny-side up eggs and, of course, the mushrooms.

I've left a few cooked mushrooms uneated to see whether cooking disrupts the Mane's self-digestive process (I'm pretty sure it does, but don't recall ever seeing it in print). I've also left some trimmed raw pieces on a plate to track their progress; they should be a icky black mess by tomorrow morning, I'm sure.

In any event, it's time to go back to work. I have a feeling it's going to be a long day.

Cheers...

Comments

[vuzh.livejournal.com]

yay! shaggy manes!

i presume you're getting rain down south then, eh?

i found some shaggy manes in telluride last year, but wasn't able to find time to cook them in time, unfortunately.

you ought to post your pictures on the mycology community.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

You betchum. While I'm sure the local weathercritters would go on about how little the recent rains have affected the drought, the ground positively squishes when you walk on it and I saw a number of streams with running water during the morning's jaunt.

Time's a bitch when it comes to shaggies. You gotta cook 'em pretty much NOW, or lose 'em.

Thanks for the comment.

Cheers...