Wet and Windy!

After some fine Indian Summer weather, today was much more autumnal, but I didn't let it deter me. I went to GW again as I'd had an interesting haul last time. The walk I did was 4 sides of a square, and as I approached the third corner, I was mentally composing my blog ... "Zilch .." it was going to say. Then, a lovely large orange birch bolete sprang into view. All was not lost. As I turned the corner I saw a bay bolete, then another. And another. And another... they were mostly small or a bit chewed, but from having had an empty basket, I had quite a respectable collection. On returning home, a hot bath and a slab of home made plum cake were in order. It was a bit wet to get my camera out, so the picture is from my last visit to this location.

A quiet week.

Two outings this week yielded little. In LV there was nothing in the beechwoods, surprising when other beech woods have provided such a lot of good eating. I refuse to come home empty handed so I brought home crab apples and made jelly. There were some lovely brackets at the top of the valley. On Friday, I managed just enough for tea from LL: one nice badius, a couple of suillus and some field and wood mushrooms.

Here's hoping they are gathering their strength for a big show next week!

Even more treats!

Yesterday's foray produced even more fine specimens, including the Penny Bun I've been looking for to upload as my profile. More horns of plenty and hedgehogs and a very respectable number of chanterelles made it a very worththwhile trip to M.

A brief local foray on the previous evening resulted in a couple of very acceptable orange birch boletes.

Rich pickings

Found not only Trompettes de mort but autumn chanterelles, a few chantrelles and one very small cep at G.Woods today. Also collected some biberries and saw a beautiful dragonfly.

A new mushroom season!

I've been out mushrooming twice this week; I was interested to see what effect the very wet weather of August had had. On Tuesday, quite a lot of very large Hedgehog fungi at the car park yielded very little once cooked. the woodland edge provided quite a few badius - also quite watery, but delicious. Of other things, only one or two - 2 saffrons, 1 horse mushroom, a slippery jack and a butter mushroom. Yesterday, it was a long time before I found anything, but above the brook quite a few orange birch boletes - enough for tea. Very strangely, there were long stretches of nothing at all, then huge numbers of things - like russulas and deceivers,. It looks like the next few days will be dry and sunny, but their are signs that the weather might turn colder. I'm optimistic of rich pickings and fortunate to have the time to get out to search for them.