Before the frosts came in earnest, we discovered a new hobby: mushrooming! We went on a couple of hikes before the frost put most of the mushrooms to rest for the winter (with the exception of the beautiful late fall oyster mushrooms).
We were pretty pleased with our first haul! These were all identified as edible while in the field and brought home to clean and cook. Our favorites were the puffball (center), which we've had before, and the abortive entoloma (left), which surprisingly tasted like candy!
This large oyster mushroom topped off our find! This wasn't even anywhere close to the whole mushroom (we went back and harvested most of the rest of it the next week). So delicious! A wonderful addition to pizza, and Mick made a great cream of mushroom soup too.
One of our favorite things about our hobby is getting to explore our woods. Not really sure how this tree came to be, but we thought it looked pretty neat! We also saw a pileated woodpecker. Gerard joined us for one of our excursions -- very adventurous of him -- until we spent a little too much time a little too far away from home for his liking. He didn't know how to get home without us (or at least wasn't about to try), but he loudly voiced his complaints!
We're looking forward to the spring flush!
