Hunting again...

A couple weeks ago after all that rain we got we did get a day to go mushroom hunting again.  We checked out a new trail we had never been on.  It's part of the Devils Backbone Wilderness in the Mark Twain National Forest (Which we are pretty much surrounded by). 
We had a fun surprise at the trailhead....

We opened this box to check it out.  It had a paper to sign in on and told what trail we were taking and had two little mice to welcome us to the forest...

  I admit I jump a bit but they were pretty cute, This is Sugar Bug begging to pick one up. I tell you she is fearless!  They seemed right at home and let us borrow a pencil to sign in with.  They were still there when we left. 

On to the hike..

We found two of these cool stick bugs.  These ones were yellow and red but we have seen them to be green or brown too. Like this one we had on the trailer.

We did find some mushrooms too. I have no idea what the one above is but the one below is a puff ball.

  This was our haul for the day.  We've gotten better about not picking everything but just got samples of ones we didn't know what they were.  The girls did awesome coming home and working to identify them..  We did have some edibles and had a good lunch of ramen and wood ear.

 

We haven't had a chance to get out again but hopefully our weather will cool off again and we can hunt some more before the year is over. :)