by fred on August 31, 2010
Cantherellus cibarius: Edible. Choice.
Edible. Choice. So the books describe this distinctive mushroom now growing in our woods. The choice now is mine.
These specimens are in my refrigerator, awaiting a final dispensation: to eat with scrambled eggs for the experience and very few additional nutrients OR to be tossed out in the woods in the vicinity from which they were collected (about 100 feet from the house) to produce more for next year–at least for photographic purposes.
I’m confident–mostly–about the ID. There are no deadly False Chanterelles and the gills running down the stems of these fluted forms is pretty distinctive. Still…
by fred on August 30, 2010
In Death, Life: The Fate of Fungi
The Kingdom Fungi is so varied in form that for mushrooms to be the sum total of our understanding of the group is a grotesque labeling that gives scant credit to the role these organisms play in the Bigger Economy. And yet, it’s understandable that mushrooms represent this group of living things as they are the most visible manifestation of a largely invisible life form.
Mushrooms also are so interesting in their growth habits, shapes and colors that it is easy to think of them the way we think of bird song–as being about melody, tone and a pleasant happy “singing” for our benefit. And all along, the Fungal Way is about dissolving their host organism–which is usually but not always dead already–like this maple tree.The fact that we find some of them interesting, lovely or edible is neither here nor there from the Fungal point of view.
I cut off the forks and branches from the top 30 feet of this fallen hardwood a few years back, and many BTU’s of firewood energy warmed my home and then escaped up the smoke stack or radiated into space from our walls. The rest of the trunk still on the ground will yield an equal amount of energy that will go into producing fungal threads that permeate these hundreds of pounds of cellulose. Here, where the thousands of miles of fungal threads contact the outer world in its orange papery form, spores from that maple-digesting mycelium will launch out to find other fallen but not consumed logs in other forests.
Still, knowing this feeding-on-death job description for Fungi, I do enjoy wallowing about on our hillside for Fungus Glamor Shots. More to come. Headed out now for some chanterelles spotted on this morning’s dog walk.
by fred on August 27, 2010
Alien invaders: Earth Life-form or Vogon BioProbe?
…with the spores of mushrooms.
I’ll be heading out after sun-up (the local sun-up when it peaks over our ridge about 9 am) for Fungus Glamor Shots. And maybe some foraging for edibles.
Some of the amanitas that arise from ornate beginnings like the one you see here will go on to grow almost a foot tall and about that wide across the caps.
There are hundreds of chanterelles, but the bright orange-red ones, which while edible, are apparently nothing to write home about, more to be added to an egg dish for the color than the taste. They are showy, though, speckling the drab slope with an uncommonly brilliant accent of red.
by fred on August 21, 2010
I am an uncommon passenger while on my home turf, but gladly so in unfamiliar territory. So while my son-in-law drove, I was able to look around. Waiting at the light, this seemed too perfect to pass up: a man fated by his name to seek his “chosen” profession.
by fred on August 20, 2010
Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs
We’ve always chuckled at this sign, imagining a throng of inbound tourists suddenly surging backwards as they approach the exit gate.
And we’ve taken this on as a perseverance rallying cry when one or the other of us is about to wilt and quit under the pressures du jour. “Do Not Back Up, darlin’, please continue to move forward.” It’s very inspirational.
I snagged it with my Droid, even though it caused a backup violation for those immediately behind me. Sometimes, you just gotta break the rules. Right?
by fred on August 12, 2010
Not in my wildest imaginings 30-something years ago...
I didn’t—I couldn’t—stay up to see it two time zones past my bedtime, but I think my daughter was seen on The Tonight Show last night, being interviewed by PeeWee Herman.
Oh yeah, there’s a story here, and we’re out in South Dakota right now to get the first hand view of it–though our first purpose is to be with the grand daughters while her parents–and especially their mom–is off on a big adventure not so far away.
And I will tell you that from a parental perspective, there has been both pride and terror, apprehension and elation that such an “opportunity” has fallen upon our first-borne.
I’ll wait to tell more until I can provide pictures to support my story. Wait—I think I have one in email I can show you. Hold on. Yeah, that’ll pique your curiosity a bit. There will be more, I promise, since the cat is out of the bag.
In the end, if you can’t change your child’s mind, you give them all the support you can. We did it for our son when he insisted he was going to walk the back roads of America from Bar Harbor to Goose Creek, and in the end, that turned out to be a valuable experience for him and for us. We’re hoping this will be another line in that particular score of music made by our children that we cannot hear until it’s done.
by fred on August 10, 2010
Trifold Project: Completed!
I’m happy to say that the first-ever trifold project I had no business taking on is done, and was not a terrible experience—though there were moments of frustration to the point of thinking I’d have to admit I’d bitten off more than I could chew. In the end, there were solutions for every problem. I made myself commit to something I didn’t know how to do but knew the obligation would be a stern and unrelenting teacher, and it was. And I passed.
So, moving right along: We’ll be spending a few days in Rapid City, South Dakota with our grand daughters while their parents will be (involved in one capacity or another—and therein, a whole nuther story for later) at the Harley Rally in and around Sturgis. I understand that our son-in-law will drive us up on Saturday for a brief exposure (so to speak) to the hedonic madness. I will be packing the Nikon for sure.
Now, to deal with the garden produce, which, as I’d expected, will be reaching its (rather meager) peak while we’re elsewhere. The corn blew down in last week’s storm, and is now on the compost pile. The tomatoes are starting to blight. And the beans are infested with bean beetles that I’ve barely managed to control with manual squishing (the technical term for digital pest control.) Even so, we’ll have beans and tomatoes to can, and they’ll be waiting like the Mongrel Hoards storming the walls when we return.
by fred on August 2, 2010
Freestyle, wide-open, peak of the summer play: Hotel Floyd Thursday Music
My photographer’s self is about to rise from a summer sleep–a not uncommon torpor that comes from too much heat, too much green and a general lethargy that overcomes me at certain combinations of heat and humidity.
I am going to revisit the notion of 1) moving up in the Nikon DSLR series, or 2) selling what I have to reduce the guilt from the costs of switching to Canon.
My chief dissatisfaction with Nikon is the low-light high-ISO color noise above ISO 400. This really limits the kinds of places I can shoot successfully. I’d be happy with a bigger and brighter LCD screen. And the potential for video would be a nice possible avenue into which to move that is not possible now.
I cleared my summer-dormant 2GB memory card of a dozen shots from the Hotel Floyd music (Windfall) last week, and here’s one pleasant and recurrent scene from that setting–the play of small children in the outdoor amphitheater–sometimes completely oblivious to the music, and other times, so revved up by it they can barely contain themselves.
I really should have shot this kind of action image at 800 and a faster shutter speed, but dang that color noise.
Am I just posturing here, or will I go by Larry’s and take a look at his Nikon 300 and 700 to see if they will solve my “issues” or will I just whine and my D200 stay in the bag for indoor shots or when the sun begins to fade?
