Morels

Morel season is here! Went out foraging this morning and brought home just under three pounds of the beauties. Found both big fat yellow and smaller grayish morels today.

Morel, Morchella esculenta, is a sac fungi, distinguished by the honeycomb-like ridges and furrows of its cap and hollow body. They commonly grow along riverbanks and forests at the base of hardwood trees and shrubs such as privet.

When harvesting morels, I like to use a curved-blade knife to cut them close to the ground rather than pull them up because pulling them can damage the mycelium and hurt the next cycle of fruiting. Further, when harvesting morels, it's good practice to try to leave some behind, both for the deer and also for the propagation of future morels. If we pick every one that we see, we leave none to release spores and reproduce and eventually a patch of morels might disappear. Often, though, there will be enough older morels around that have begun to decay that you can collect the younger fresh ones and the patch will go on to produce next year's bounty.

This is me holding some of the morels I found today! Side note, the shirt I'm wearing is one I got from participating last year in a march to raise awareness of the approximately 22 veterans who take their lives each day. It's tragic and needs more focus and attention. For more on this, please visit https://www.22toomany.com/.

The way I like to prepare morels is to clean them, of course, wash thoroughly and get all the slugs and ants and spiders out of the crevices, cut them in half and rinse off any sand that might be up inside or along the grooves. Sauté them in an ample amount of butter, add a little salt and pepper and cook to a thorough crisp. You want them browned completely, cooked through, they should have a bit of a crunch to them. We really prefer them this way as opposed to any other way, they're not nearly as good if they are at all mushy.  

On my foraging excursion today, there were heaps of mushrooms out. I spotted wood ear mushrooms, some jelly fungi, dozens of little brown mushrooms,  and some healthy turkey tails, Trametes versicolor. These rains have served the springtime mushrooms well. I also picked up these two small puffball mushrooms, Bovista, and spotted this friendly little turtle who hunkered down as I passed. I intend to fry up these little puffballs along with my morels. Should be a good dinner tonight!

My daughter holding one of the larger morels I found today. We'll be lucky if she leaves any for us tonight when we cook them, she loves her some gourmet mushrooms.

For more information about morels and mushroom identification, please visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella and I recommend picking up a mushroom identification book or two. Morels are very easy to ID, but there are certain features to be mindful of in terms of the potential for lookalikes. The hollow body is the prime feature to spot, if you cut one in half and it's not hollow, it's clearly not a morel and I wouldn't recommend eating it.

Always be sure you are 100% positive of the identification of mushrooms before consuming them. Regarding the puffballs pictured above, if you're not sure about a puffball, cut it in half, if you see gills, it's not a puffball, it's a young fungi that hasn't yet opened up. Do not eat it. Also, if the puffball mushroom has any discoloration inside, this is a sign that the fungi has begun to produce spores, which are toxic, do not eat it. If you're not sure, ask an expert or do more research.

Thanks for reading and happy foraging!

Peace!

Vitamin D

Vitamin D There are a good number of sources pointing toward Vitamin D as a vital resource needed by your body for optimal health. Many of these articles discuss deficiencies of this vitamin.

I feel fairly confident that this type of deficiency has never befallen me because I've always eaten healthy portions of mushrooms, many of which are known to be great sources of Vitamin D. There are even ways to boost the Vitamin D content of mushrooms before eating them, by placing them in sunlight before consumption. A good heap of research has been done to link Seasonal Affective Disorder to Vitamin D deficiency as well, which is yet another good reason to ensure that you are getting your proper dose of mushrooms.

Wood Ear Mushroom

Wood Ear Mushrooms

Knowledge of the world around us, being able to tell one plant from another, or one mushroom from another can cut through what would otherwise be a hazy picture, blindness, deafness, and add distinctiveness and features to a world that, in ignorance, just simply blends together in a blur. I don't claim to be an expert on any topic, but I do consider myself a perpetual student of everything; you can never know enough, there are no masters, only those who know more than most. Striving to soak up more, reaching our intrigue out at the world like tendrils ready to deconstruct knowledge and pull it into our mind and our being. I may attempt identification of wild plants, mushrooms, but I am merely an amateur Mycologist (one who studies mushrooms and fungi) please do your own research and consult resources before attempting to consume any mushroom you may find.



I highly recommend the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Mushrooms. I am a human and we creatures have a history of being wrong or misinformed.

These squishy, springy little growths in this photo are Auricularia polytricha, the Wood Ear Mushroom. You'll find them primarily on dead hardwoods. They differ from Auricularia auricula-judae in that they are slightly fuzzy.Often, you can find a whole lot of them all in one place, look high, look low, they may be on a tree that is dead, but still standing, or on a log that has collapsed, sometimes they'll bulge out from between the bark and the hardwood.

Wood Ears are edible, so when I found these and identified them, the next step was to bioassay, which in Mycological terms means to test upon oneself. Eat a tiny bit of the mushroom, wait a day, see if you have any ill effects, if you do not, they're safe(r) to consume. This serves two purposes, if the mushroom is toxic, you'll only have ingested a portion, and secondly, you'll learn if you're allergic to it. Sometimes, even well-documented, instantly-identifiable fungi which may be known to be edible may still cause allergic reactions to some so you should always take care. Obviously, you'll want to consult a doctor if you end up getting sick from these experiments upon your body, but use your judgement. My bioassay went well. The next day, I cooked them up in beef stew in a crockpot. They have a very strange texture, springy, like gristle, and on their own, they are flavorless, however, soaked in beef and vegetable juices, they become filled with flavors they absorb.


In the bottom right of this photo is Poison Ivy, tends to grow wild and thick in Georgia. I highly recommend that you avoid touching it or touching boots or jeans that have touched it as the oils can remain active long after you've trod through a patch of it. I've had a few run-ins with Poison Ivy in my day and it's bad news. Seriously brutal. A couple years ago I was renting a room in a friend's house and when he told me he'd knock fifty bucks off the rent if I mowed his lawn, I went outside in a rush, pushed his lawnmower all around his 2 acre property and then for the next few weeks, suffered unbelievable pain on my legs from the blisters and irritated skin, leaf-licked lesions. Some people are immune to it, but I am not and suffer greatly. My other experience with this awful leaf was when I was about thirteen. During a long day of fishing with my dad and brother, catching all manner of Bluegills and Catfish, we, at midday, pulled alongshore for a bathroom break. The rest of the summer was spent on a couch recovering from horrible rashes. I was placed on steroids to regain strength, wore oven mitts to mitigate the temptation to scratch anywhere and cause further agony.

Calamine-coated calamity. Price is Right buzzing on the TV and Poison Ivy buzzing through my brain with a call to claw at these itchy knees and ankles, it's a battle to halt your hand from indulging. A shower feels remarkably satisfying, though, if you take the sprayer off the dock and run the water over the area, it's like your nerve endings don't really know what to do, a wild sensory overload, your mind begins to buzz a bit. It's such a relief when the pain and rash and blisters go away and finally heal, though. Part of me never wants to go back into a forest at that point, but once I step back under the canopy, hear the crunch of pine needles and last year's leaves under my feet, hear the birds singing, and see the multitude of wild species, hundred different kinds of trees, random mushrooms poking up next to a fallen log, I feel at ease again, back in the wild where I belong, it beats me down but then pulls me back with a rejuvenating hand.

Introduction

Hey everyone! Starting a new blog for the purpose of sharing some of my experiences and posting reviews for products that I personally use. Focus will revolve around the camping world. I'll talk about hiking, backpacking, hunting, fishing, campfires, and may get into some stories of finding wild edible mushrooms, edible plants, gardening, tree identification and so on.

I am 30 years old, originally from a tiny rural Wisconsin town, now living in Midtown, Atlanta. I'm finding that there is an abundance of parks and random green spaces sprinkled in and around metro Atlanta; nestled between the highrise hustle, concrete bustle, there is so much natural beauty to explore!

As a youth, my dad would take us hunting, fishing, foraging in the woods of Wisconsin, my mom would put us to work gardening, growing vegetables. My childhood held a lot of outdoor fun and excitement and I hope to share some of my tales with you! Although my day job is in the telecommunications field, I truly enjoy spending time outdoors and I find nature very beautiful; there is peace in plant life, and learning about nature puts you closer to it and can sharpen the appreciation of all that the natural world has to offer.

I hope you find this information entertaining and/or useful! Thanks for reading!