Quick chanterelle beauty

Young chanterelles and grapevine

This lovely composition was nicely arranged for me before I got there, I guess by faeries (photo from June 28th).

The TRUE Field of Chanterelle Joy

This is what it’s like, in the woods right now. Kind of puts last year’s field to shame. But, I got a late start on all this (Sept. '09), so this spring and summer is all new to me.

This is actually very close to last year’s big patch that I was so excited about, but when I found that one, this area had already faded, so I didn’t know.

I know I keep going ON and ON about the dang chanterelles, but it’s just so fun to walk into the woods, and walk out 2-3 hours later with enough of these beautiful, fragrant mushrooms that I can gives bags of them to friends.

Here’s some other fun chanterelle antics:


I’ve found a bunch of these crazy ruffled ones, and so have some friends. I’m working on finding out what’s up with this; some were even more impossibly cauliflowered.

Walnut Sphinx moth

Whoa! I picked this one and this marvelous bonus Walnut Sphinx moth was on it!  It didn’t seem to care one bit that I was holding up the mushroom and moving it around for 5 minutes as I took pictures; it never moved. It was pretty big—see my fingertips.

Amorpha juglandi

Extra double wonder-bonus—they tell me the caterpillar squeaks when disturbed!!!

White jelly fungus (and more chanterelles)

Exidia alba--synonym Ductifera pululahuana

Lots of Chanterelles

About 6” of rain in 3 days means a whole lot of mushrooms are bursting forth…there's so many chanterelles out that I was perfectly comfortable GIVING AWAY the whole bag from the last outing. Two people at work seemed interested enough, as I babbled on & on about mushrooms (like I do), that I asked them if they'd like to try some, and they said yes, with believable enthusiasm, so I picked the last batch just for them.

There's so many of them that when this woman overheard us, and came to see them, and said "Oh, that's what those are??? I just mowed a whole bunch of them down before work today!," I * did * not * even * care.

SO much nicer than the paranoia and stress involved with MORELS. Chanterelles are prolific; they show up in the same area year after year, they're really easy to spot, they're all over the place, and they keep coming up for months--they'll be around, in abundance, through the fall. I know 5 places right this second that I could take someone and we would find chanterelles. Unlike some mushrooms we know.

The little white jelly fungus is Exidia alba; it's about an inch across.

Let the Games Begin! The Chanterelles are HERE!

Let the Games Begin!, originally uploaded by Mycologista.

The chanterelles are out!

I was on my way to checking The Field of Chanterelle Joy and found them just all over the woods, right on the little paths. Nobody home yet in The Field, though.

Curious I am to see what will happen in the field, which last September was covered with hundreds of them for a good few months. Also, it's hardly a "field"--it's covered with some plant I haven't ID'd yet, and lots of damn honeysuckle, and trees.

I cleaned and sauteed the whole lot of them, ate a LOT of them in scrambled eggs, and there's plenty left (until TOMORROW, anyway, when I'm going for another hike), and my house smells like chanterelles, which is great.

Chanterelle motherlode!

HUGE field of chanterelles. Every orange spot you can see is another one. Goes to edge of frame.
Click for life-sized experience.