A lie in, lovely!
After lunch I cycled down to York Cemetery to go on a fungal foray with another fungus enthusiast, Findlay Cook. I asked both my boys if they'd like to come but the answers were negative, pity. Lots of people turned up, but because of the mostly dry weather, relatively few fungi. There were a few 'ink caps' and related 'fairies bonnets', a parasol, puffballs, a bracket and quite a few difficult to determine species. After the walk around, we went to the Chapel where Findlay had got a few more specimens he'd found elsewhere, including some Amanita muscaria, the Fly Agaric, and a conjoined pair of ceps.
I had a good chat with my friend Jane, who's a wheelchair user, about access to shops and what she thinks about places which could easily be more accessible but don't bother. We are both pretty pissed off with some people's attitude.
When we finished our chat, Findlay had cleared up and put all the specimens in a bag, so I asked him if he was intending to use the double Boletus... and he was happy for me to have them. So I cycled home with some Shaggy Ink Caps and the little 'penny buns' and I cleaned these up and put them into a frying pan when I got home.
When I'd had a coffee I went to sort out more composting and pulled out another few Privet hedge plants. This resulted in between 10 and 15 roots, and another Freecycler came round to pick them up.
Gill made a pizza with home-made tomato topping, and we had that with potato salad, and some tough avocados which I think need to ripen a bit.
The most mention-worthy thing during the evening was that I prepared a lot of plums, and put them in a drying tray on a plastic bag, so that they dry on the stove over the next day or three, and can then be peeled off the plastic and put on a rack to continue drying. They end up chewy and delicious, by far my favourite way of preserving fruit, and my favourite way of eating fruit too!
Showing posts with label fungus foray. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fungus foray. Show all posts
The boys had a lie in til about 9am which was a small but lovely treat. A relatively peaceful morning followed... and I cycled down to town to put in yesterday's cheque and a couple of other bits and pieces. Decided to come back via the cycle track and collect some logs, but when I'd done this I continued along the track which became increasingly icy and slippery and virtually impossible to push my overloaded bike and trailer. It was totally impossible to actually ride the bike on this ice, and so slippery that my feet didn't have enough purchase to push the bike. At one place, I had to unload the trailer, push the bike to a less slippery bit and re-load. I stopped off at St Nicks and chatted to Robin who was looking after the place and warming soup for the eco-active volunteers on their woodstove.
I did eventually get home. Had lunch and tried to persuade both boys to come to St Nicks to attend the Fungus Foray which was being led by my friend Findlay Coopar. However, only our youngest was willing to come. He had a lovely time and played with Simon's son, and afterwards, Simon and offspring came back home for a coffee, natter and play. We found a good selection of fungi on the nature reserve, many of them quite difficult to identify brackets on logs, as there are lots of enormous tree trunks dumped there, making an excellent habitat for a range of organisms. So we found hoof fungus, a type of oyster called pulmonarius, which looks like lung tissue, 'Jews Ear' on Elder trees, Common Coprinus which has a drug called antabuse within it, used to try to help alcoholics stop drinking. There were also candle snuff fungus, 'dead mans fingers, velvet shank, and Simon had spotted some Oyster on the way to St Nicks, which he went to find and bring in to show everybody. Findlay knows a lot about fungi including the encrusting ones which I don't know much about. I really enjoyed myself.
After Simon went, I put three sacks of compostables into the compostumbler and brought a load of apples and garlic back up the garden for preserving. I helped Gill do tea, by preparing some sweetcorn and home-grown potatoes, which needed a lot of work as the slugs and woodlice had got there first, but had left plenty for us as well. A good tea.
Gill and I had a game of Scrabble and I washed, halved, topped and tailed, cored, peeled and sliced about 20 apples which had been thrown away, and put these 80 or so slices on cake racks on the big water cans on the stove to dry... an excellent harvest from the bins! I won the Scrabble.
I did eventually get home. Had lunch and tried to persuade both boys to come to St Nicks to attend the Fungus Foray which was being led by my friend Findlay Coopar. However, only our youngest was willing to come. He had a lovely time and played with Simon's son, and afterwards, Simon and offspring came back home for a coffee, natter and play. We found a good selection of fungi on the nature reserve, many of them quite difficult to identify brackets on logs, as there are lots of enormous tree trunks dumped there, making an excellent habitat for a range of organisms. So we found hoof fungus, a type of oyster called pulmonarius, which looks like lung tissue, 'Jews Ear' on Elder trees, Common Coprinus which has a drug called antabuse within it, used to try to help alcoholics stop drinking. There were also candle snuff fungus, 'dead mans fingers, velvet shank, and Simon had spotted some Oyster on the way to St Nicks, which he went to find and bring in to show everybody. Findlay knows a lot about fungi including the encrusting ones which I don't know much about. I really enjoyed myself.
After Simon went, I put three sacks of compostables into the compostumbler and brought a load of apples and garlic back up the garden for preserving. I helped Gill do tea, by preparing some sweetcorn and home-grown potatoes, which needed a lot of work as the slugs and woodlice had got there first, but had left plenty for us as well. A good tea.
Gill and I had a game of Scrabble and I washed, halved, topped and tailed, cored, peeled and sliced about 20 apples which had been thrown away, and put these 80 or so slices on cake racks on the big water cans on the stove to dry... an excellent harvest from the bins! I won the Scrabble.
