Spores for Thought

Ok, bye!

mushroom rain

#грубнойдождь

a pair of porcelain fungi that somehow seem to both express the way I started to feel about all social media, whilst simultaneously calling me to post them on social media! Maybe it's time to spread some spores once more

for auld time's sakes, it's an

the force which drives the green fuse through the brambles

Wet Welsh summer. Moss under beech = Siantrelau

The morels may have gone into hiding for me, but the St Georgie's are shining through the moss with their delightful rubbery caps and plasticine aroma.

Truly the mushroom gods have shone their light down on me as I gnash my teeth waylaid with disorganised work that prevents me from spending the spring, as I do typically, unsuccessfully scouring the landscape for suitable ecological and geological pockets where I might find the elusive wild morel, the elusive Welsh morel even more-so. And so it came to pass as I ambled past all the piles of To-Do List surrounding my boat cursing the beauty of spring as it emerges outside of my control, that I spotted a little puff of spores through a sunbeam and a spiders web and lo, and behold it's only a pair of bloody wild Morels right next to my god damn boat 🤯

Hallelujah! Behold my Easter miracle.

Getting this post out there before April Fools just to avoid any doubts!

Cold times in cold quarries and cold canals and warm boats.

Glowing within like hot coals we finally got round to axeing up the large Chaga ( ) we found erupting out of a wayside birch a few weeks ago. Very satisfying to split with a big blunt axe and grind into a powder for a wintery brew.

Noted the return of the Clouded Agarics in their huge rings recently in many of my local woodlands, but hurrah, their tasty cousins the Trooping Funnels are back also! Round here a much more infrequent sight with their tall stout stems and rubbery umbo caps which always seem to retain a little bump in the centre even if the reach full on 'infundibul' chalice-like funnel shape in maturity. Love to fry these hot til crisp like tasty mushroom bacon. Any turned up in your local woodlands? They especially love to stand guard on forest tracks near the edges of woodland!

Baby honey, honey baby! Fast and bulbous, it's popping up all over the place up here on stumps, round roots, on logs even in fields where old hedges have been grubbed out.
There's a few species of Armillaria or honey fungus to be found in the UK, this one is, for obvious reasons known as Bulbous Honey Fungus due to its bulbous bases especially in young fruiting bodies.