Hunting Mushrooms

      There is nothing better than walking through the woods on a cloudy, misty day.  No heat to deal with and the bugs aren't usually out yet if you've had a good rain.  But that doesn't mean the animal aren't busy and tracks show up better in the muddy areas.  The best part is mushrooms are popping up everywhere.  I never knew there was such a variety of mushrooms in the world. We had two days of mushroom hunting and collected probably over 150 mushrooms most of which we couldn't identify but some we did. 
   Again as with anything from the wild please do your own research before you eat anything!!  Mushrooms can be especially dangerous as you must be very careful to know what you are eating making a mistake can be fatal.  We used books, pictures, and internet to identify our mushrooms and did not even taste anything we were not 100% sure about. Pictures will not do it alone as so many of the mushrooms look alike and may look like a poisonous counterpart.  You have to study descriptions and often take spore prints of the mushrooms to determine what they are. I can not be responsible for someone eating a poisonous mushroom.
  That said we have had alot of fun exploring and learning about what the earth has to offer us. 

The Mother Lode of Mushrooms!

                                                       In the end all our mushrooms filled that 5 gallon bucket.


Here is our prize mushroom.  Super D found this while hunting.  No deer but I think this was better.

                           This is called a Bearded tooth mushroom and it was good to eat!  These are rare to find and this provided enough for six people.  It was meaty and super yummy fried up.

                             These are a honey mushroom but there are several varieties and we were not successful in figuring out which one these were.  Some are edible and some aren't so we didn't chance eating these.

       These are a Pale Jelly Roll. They are not edible but pretty cool to look at.  They wiggle like jello.

     Ever see a blue mushroom?   These are the Indigo Milky.  They leak a blue milk like liquid when damaged.  They are edible but we didn't get the chance to eat these yet.  I'll report on taste next time.

    How about a purple one?  We never did figure out what this was.  But it was a cool looking! 
Can't wait to go hunting again!

Lessons Learned and Challenges

                 We went on a great vacation to Colorado to visit family and friends.  We had a blast and I learned some things.  There are things about city life that I miss...  I miss being able to run outside barefoot in the manicured grass lawns.  Our field is just not the same. I miss being able to run to the store and to a friends house to visit.   But I also learned what I love about our country life. 
        While away I missed Stars!  The stars outside my front door are amazingly bright and plentiful.  In the city you just can not see them because of all the lights.   
I missed the quiet.  Now understand me, the country is not quiet but the noises are different.  I enjoy the sounds of nature including the annoying cow and early rising roosters to cars and people.
I missed wide open spaces.  I was surprised how much I missed being able to see for miles and not just across the street.  I love looking out and seeing space and trees.  I got sad looking out and just seeing the neighbors house and felt cramped.   
             It is safe to say I have fallen in love with our life here!  Even though we are still living with no running water, no oven, and no store around the corner I am happier here than I was in town.  I am living my dream and am so thankful.  No running water but we now have internet. :)
             Even with the challenges of country living we are going strong and it is really starting to feel like home.  

        Now besides the challenges of hauling water and going to town to do laundry here are some other obtstacles we have faced.....
         Deer!  There are tons of deer and in a heroic effort to save one Super D swerved missed the deer but lost contol of the car and rolled it.   So we are one car down now.

Only Super D and I were in the car and thankfully we only suffered a couple scrapes nothing serious.

Poison Ivy!  Yuck.  I was the first of our family to have a major entaglement with this stuff.  We've been very careful about watching out for the stuff and have been able to avoid it.  Well we were working out side one day and I must have run into it around my ankles and didn't realize it and then managed to spread it all the way up my leg and even on me wrists a little. 

 

Here's what I've learned about Poison Ivy. It iches like crazy! What is super bad is that if you give in and itch it then it stings bad.  It causes red swollen areas where it is bad and once you have a good case of it it takes 14-20 days to clear up. Thankfully after a week the iching has lessened a little but it amazes me how it will start to itch terribly out of nowhere. 

Other than this it's little pests like the armidillos that keep digging up my garden and the mice that want to find their way into the trailer.  But overall these are little things that we are learning to live with.  Most the critters we find we still fasinating!  Next I'll tell you about our mushroom hunts and new pets. :) 

I'd love to hear from you if your reading these and have any questions! 

 

Vacation back home?

        Well, we had a great vacation to Colorado to visit family and friends.  We also got to stop in Okahoma and visit Grammy for her birthday. (I'd tell you which one but I fear for my life) We only got to stay the weekend with Grammy but we had a blast celebrating out playing putt putt golf.  Never knew that to be so dangerous!  So to the fun stuff here are the pictures from this adventure  :) 


Super D and Sassafras relaxing at Great Grandmas

Great Grandma left the cooking to us and Sugarbug was only to ready to make pumpkin pie!

Grandpa and Sugarbug (Super D's dad)

A whole mess of kids we had over one afternoon,  Not sure Grandma knew how to handle that :)  (Mom's if you want these pics I'll e-mail them to you just let me know!)

Grandma fell in love with our doggies we tried to leave them with her :)  Sorry Grandma has made it clear she doesn't want to have her picture online so I blocked her but couldn't resist the picture. 



      After Colorado it was back to Oklahoma! Time to party :)

Me and the Birthday Girl. 

Sugarbug insisted that Grammy blow out a candle and since I forgot to get them for her cake this was all we could find.



Playing in the arcade waiting for our turn at putt putt, I think Sugarbug is about to crash!

Yeah Hole in one for the Birthday Girl!  

Aunt J (My sister) taking her turn. Note the water behind her. 

 Now note Sugarbug with no shoes and wet pants!  Apparently my children can not resist water.  :)  She fell in chasing a run away ball.

All in all we had an awesome Vacation and I learned why I'm happy to be back in Missouri and now feel like we are at home.  But that's for next time.