Pretty in Black

So Maggie the Wonder Dog and I decided spur of the moment to take a run down to coastal California in search of one of my favorite mushrooms, Craterellus cornucopioides aka the black trumpet or Trompette de la Mort. They look like little black petunias and have a good strong earthy taste. Affectionately referred to as the "poor man's truffle", these black relatives to the chanterelle family are both stunning to look at but will flavor a dish very nicely.

We took off Friday morning around 11 am and headed straight down highway 97 all the way to the CA boarder just south of Klamath Falls. We passed an interesting area where thousands and thousands of white swans were enjoying the beautiful morning on the water but unfortunately there was nowhere to pull off the road for a photo. Continuing south we could see Mount Shasta in our sights. Wow, what a sight!

After stopping to see old friends at the Fly Shop in Redding where it was a balmy 70 degrees, I pushed on all the way to the little community off I-5 called Williams. What a cute town....from there it was another 2.5 hours over to Fort Bragg on the coast and mushroom heaven.

Black trumpets are not the easiest thing to spot in the woods but once you get your eyes dialed in and focused on what to look for, you start to notice them a lot easier. Since often they are growing out of black mud, they blend right into their surroundings and are rather invisible. When you can find them growing in green moss, they are easy to spot.

The host trees to look for with this mushroom are tanoak, chinkapin, madrone, manzanita and live oak.

Maggie and I managed to scour the forest floor and brought home a good amount of mushrooms to preserve and store for the future. All in all, a great weekend get away and beautiful weather to boot.

Another Mushroom Foray in Old Growth

Mushrooms in Old Growth Forest

It's not every day I get to take a long hike through an old growth forest. It's such a magical feeling to be amongst such grandeur and beauty. My purpose of this walk was mushroom photos, of course. I was and still am (unfortunately) in search of a photo of Polyozellus multiplex, aka Blue Chanterelle. It's not actually a chanterelle at all, but that's another story I will leave until the day I have such a photo with which to share. Until then, here are some of my favorites from the hike.

The Hazards of Bungee Cords

I'm writing this simply because I think there are many people out there who have no idea just how dangerous bungee cords are and can be. I witnessed this first hand this last June while spending the summer in Montana. I was securing the cover on my wooden row boat and while hunched over, under my boat trailer, I had the bungee fully extended and while reaching to hook the end onto a spot that would hold it taught, the bungee slipped out of my grip and shot back at a force like out of a shotgun and hit me squarely in the right eye; my dominant eye that I use for all my most skillful needs such as photography. The blow hit with such force, it nearly knocked me out.

At first I just grabbed the first thing I could find so as not to pass out on the floor where it would be perhaps days before someone found me. I stood there trying to catch my breath and get my wits about me and then opened my right eye to see how badly I damaged it with the bungee. At first all I could see was white light. I had no vision, just white light. I was so scared that I was going to be blind in that eye that I drove myself in shock, with one eye and horrible pain in my right eye, 30 miles over a mountain pass and with just one eye with which to see where I was going. (try driving with one eye closed sometime and see how you do...it's damn hard)

I arrived at the Emergency Room on a Sunday afternoon and luckily I was about the only patient in the ER that afternoon. When asked to read the eye chart on the wall, I was hard pressed to even read the giant E at the top of the chart. Slowly my vision started to come back and the white light receded. The outcome at that time was Hyphema; blood in the anterior region of the eyeball. The blood in my eye was blocking my vision, hence the white light. I was ordered to 5 days of total bed rest with no computer, no reading, must sleep sitting up and no lifting or anything. In other words, lie down and shut up and don't move! We didn't want to create a re-bleed which would have involved surgery to fix it at that point. I had to use steroid eye drops every two hours around the clock for almost a month.

As time went by and I kept going to see the ophthalmologist, I couldn't help noticing my vision was getting worse and worse. Eventually I went to another eye doctor in Missoula and was then told I'd torn the zonules in my right eye which in turn made my lens loose and was distorting my vision. Along with a partially blown pupil and sphincter tears, my eye is a damn mess and I've done permanent damage to it. I've given myself an astigmatism, my vision continues to worsen so fast that I no sooner get a new prescription and lens made, my eye has already worsened and the lens is no good just that fast. My one month eye exam showed a full diopter change in just one month which is almost unheard of. Now, just four months later, I have a cataract in my right eye which will now need to be removed.

I'm telling this horror story to all of you in the hopes that the word will get out just how horribly dangerous bungee cords are and to please, please be careful when using them. Wear protective eye gear and don't get your face anywhere near the darn things as they can destroy your life in just one split second!

I will have eye surgery in December to replace the lens in my eye and if all goes well, I should be able to dump these horrible glasses I've had to endure that make me dizzy and disoriented, and unable to even wear while walking. Let my horrible experience prevent you from making the same stupid mistake and ruining your eyesight in one fowl swoop. Bungee cords are horribly dangerous and can destroy an eye in a fraction of a second. Tell all your friends and loved ones about this horror story and don't let it happen to you. I will update once I've had the surgery and let you know how things turn out.

I'm Baaaack

Well, guess what? Summer is over and winter was approaching quickly and I did not want to spend another long winter in Montana so here I am back in Oregon, only this time, I'm giving Bend a go. So far, so good! I don't think winter will be as cold or as long here in central Oregon as it is in SW Montana, and being a good 1,000 feet lower in elevation can't hurt.

Bend is a beautiful town and the population is made up mostly of very energetic, outdoorsey, professional people who take their recreating seriously. Is there a law in Bend that everyone has to own a kayak? Never seen so many kayaks on car roof racks as driving up the Cascade Lakes Highway yesterday. Kayaks and mountain bikes. I guess if I was back in MT right now it would be pick up trucks loaded with dead animals in the back so I'll be happy to look at kayaks and bikes, thank you.

Now that I've been here for two weeks, I've started getting somewhat settled into the new pad and Maggie the Wonder Dog and I have managed to get out last weekend to find a few chanterelles and then this weekend to do some photographing of central Oregon and the multitude of lakes and mountains (actually volcanoes). Here is a sampling of some photos from the last two weeks.

Chanterelles, Oh How I Love Chanterelles

I've lived in SW Montana for over 11 years and never found a chanterelle here anywhere in this state until yesterday! I had heard they do grow over in north western Montana around Lolo Pass but I've never been there at what I would expect to be the right time.

Yesterday I decided to go check a spot I've never been to before because I've heard it's a beautiful place and it's "mushroomy". I was amazed, shocked and very pleased to find chanterelles growing all over the place. Wow, what an amazing thing to find after years and years thinking this side of the divide was too dry. Of course this has been one of the wettest summers I can remember here. We almost never get rain in August but this year we've had gully washers. So, the chants seem to really like it...lots of rain then sun breaks and HEAT! Which is what we have now. It's in the 90's as I write this.

The most interesting thing about these chanterelles, and I've found tons and I mean tons in my days of mushrooming, is their vibrant color. The chants I used to pick in California and then in WA and OR are much yellower and these are more of an electric, day glo orange...absolutely gorgeous mushrooms.

It was stifling hot yesterday and Maggie the wonder dog and I had to do quite a bit of walking to find all these. It was funny because you'd walk along for a while and find no chants then come to a huge pocket of them all in one spot.

It was one of the most memorable mushroom hunts I've had in Montana and I will never forget the first chanterelles I ever found here. The most gorgeous of any I've picked anywhere!

And I even found some more beautiful #1 prime Boletus edulis buttons:

Montana Boletes 2009

This has been one of the oddest summers here in SW Montana that I can remember in the 11+ years I've lived here and the boletes seem to be going along with it. Last year I was picking 20+ pounds each time I went and this year was more like 20 mushrooms per visit which just doesn't make sense to me but what can I say?

Usually my patch starts producing around July 8th but last year didn't start until the third week in July and then went well into the middle of August. That was pretty much the same this year also but I'm still finding some here and there.

This spot is primarily all Douglas fir trees and the elevation is over 6,800 feet asl. We've had cold snaps, lots of rain, then a little heat, then cold, rain and then heat. Yo yo weather for sure and now we are back to HOT!

I don't think I've ever seen so many slugs in the field. The slugs were eating everything like pirhana.

Look how many slugs are in this photo and the damage they did: