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!!!

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.