Nick Visits!

Last Friday, I picked up Nick at the Eugene airport just in time for the 19th annual Yachats Mushroom Festival. He was with us until Tuesday, when we had to drive him back to Eugene. It was a mushroom themed visit - educational and fun!

Friday night was the Fun-Guys and Fun-Gals Feast. It was rather a low key affair with buffet servings from the local restaurants.  Saturday was our action packed day with two guided walks and perusing the mushroom exhibit at the Lion's Hall.

David Pilz, forest mycologist and author of the novel Bog Maiden, led us on our first tour. He pointed out various fungi and answered questions along the way. He even took a bite out of a big Russula to see if it was an edible species. Apparently it wasn't, as he spit it out forcefully.

We had a little time to kill, so we showed Nick the view from the top of Cape Perpetua.  Our walks were down below.

 Our next guided walk, a fast two hours, was with Susie Holmes, biology professor at Laine Community College.  She did an excellent job of being informative and humorous.


The couple on the left and their friend came all the way from Oklahoma, I believe, for this event.

Susie brought a collection of fungi from a hike she did the day before. It has been an unusually dry fall, so far, so she wasn't taking any chances.

This fungi is called an artist's conk, because if you scratch it, it turns a very dark color.  She demonstrated on this one.

 Off to the Lion's Club hall for tables of mushroom displays.  They were labeled by name and edibility.  There was a large table of unknown mushrooms.

A large bolete mushroom.


Sunday, Nick and I went hiking most of the day in the forest above the Carson Cemetery, a couple miles down the road.

 A corral mushroom.

 Amanita, muscaria, the psychoactive and toxic mushroom also known as Fly Agaric.

 A russula, possibly a shrimp russula, as it smelled like shrimp. We could even smell some of these before we saw them.

 We noticed this cluster of saprophytic mushrooms and upon going up a slope to examine them, we came upon a scattering of  chanterelles - a delicious musharoom that cannot be easily confused with other mushrooms.

Chanterelle mushroom.  We picked nearly a paper lunch bag full before stopping.

 This is the slope we found them on.

Another amanita with its tell-tale warts.

 When we got home, Gail had done some of her own mushroom hunting on our property.

 Nick brushed the chanterelles clean, and then sauteed a few. We decided to just eat a small amount each out of an abundance of caution to make sure none of us had a sensitivity to them.

We had the bug now! Monday, Nick and I headed for Cape Perpetua to do the Cummins Creek/Gwynn Creek loop trail. 

 After awhile, we just had to go up a slope to see if we culd find any more chanterelles. Bingo!  We collected another bag full.

 We had lunch on this overlook.

 By the time we made the loop, it was after 5:00 PM and the fog had rolled in .

Flipping over fungi.

The Gatherers

Gail made some amazing spore prints by covering upside down mushroom caps.  After a few hours or 24 hours, the spores fall from the gills leaving radiating patterns.  This is done usually to check the color of the spores for identification purposes.  Gail, though, is excited by the art possibilities.  More to come!