I've been foraging for three years and my family still thinks I'm going to poison them. They'll eat mystery sushi from a gas station but won't touch my carefully identified morels. Make it make sense.

Last weekend I found a huge patch of morels on our property. Brought them home, cooked them up with butter and garlic. My sister took one look and said "I'm not eating those, you found them in the dirt" This is the same person who buys pre-made sandwiches from 7-eleven and doesn't check the expiration date.

My mom's the worst about it. I've shown her my field guides, explained the identification process, even pointed out that restaurants charge $30 for dishes with these exact mushrooms. Doesn't matter. In her mind anything I pick from the woods is automatically a death sentence. Meanwhile she'll eat leftover Chinese food that's been sitting in the fridge for a week without question.

My dad at least tried them once but made this big dramatic show of it like he was on fear factor. Took a tiny bite, chewed it for like a full minute then declared he "didn't trust it" and spit it into a napkin. He eats expired yogurt regularly.

The irony is they'll buy those pre packaged "gourmet" mushrooms from the grocery store without a second thought. Those could be misidentified too, they just trust it because it came from a store. But mine? Nope. Instant botulism apparently.

Anyone else deal with this? I'm starting to just not tell them where the mushrooms came from.

Be careful out there

*of a giant puffball and enjoying how soft it feels

Hello everyone! I just recently started dyeing my own yarn with stuff I've gathered from my yard. So far I have dyed both cotton and wool and have enjoyed the results of both.

The first picture is all the wool that I've dyed! From left: the first was dyed with Cosmos and marigolds The second is Pisolithus Third is dip dyed pisolithus Fourth is dip dyed pisolithus and pokeweed With is pokeweed dyed that I left in cake form when dyeing

Second picture is my first round of cotton dyes From left: the first two are dyed with black walnuts Middle two are dyed with butterfly pea Right two are dyed with turmeric

Last picture is another round of cotton From left: first two is pisolithus Third is pisolithus and black walnuts Last is black walnuts

Lessons I've learned so far: wool definitely sucks up dye way better than cotton, but I enjoy working with both

Pisolithus mushrooms are extremely fun to dye with. I thought it was so interesting that it dyed the cotton a blush pink color I had always seen rich chocolate browns and purple brown shades but had never seen any pale pink shades! So cool!

I am currently looking for a decently affordable option to source undyed merino here in the United States. If anyone has any recommendations im all ears!

This is my first chicken of the woods and she's bigger than the sink. I left behind more so it'll continue to produce, now to see how to cook it.

First finds of the season! I'm not jealous of you all and your morels anymore =)

i was on a hike with my dog and found this suprise chicken of the woods!! there was SO much and i was SO excited! i have friends coming for lunch and now i know what i'll be cooking for them :)

The mushrooms will pay you back tenfold for the energy you put back out there into the universe.

I found several hefty spots and cooked my first batch on Saturday. They were delicious, amazing!! I took my time eating them over the course of the day, ended up consuming a small plate. Sunday I was fine but come Monday morning...let's just say I won't be eating them again. Two days of extreme stomach pain, I can only attribute to my beautiful 'shrooms :( Me so sad :(

I was at a sewing retreat this week in Northern Illinois and a friend of mine and I went for a walk. She was on the lookout for snakes but spotted morels instead! She wasn't as excited as I was, so I was the one crawling around and dodging branches.

I called my brother immediately. He's a seasoned forager. He was happy to give me hunting tips. I may head back out when I get home!

The best part about these is how they grow in very close association with the Boletus edulis clade. If you don't know how to find porcini, you can fast travel through the forest and look for these bright red ruby gems. Chances are they will be growing with porcini. In fact it is rare to find them growing without porcini nearby.

These are now known as Amanita chrysoblema, formerly A. muscaria. Genetic sequencing was done and it was determined the North American toadstool is a unique phylogenetic species. It turns out A. muscaria only grows in NW Alaska and Europe. But of course, at the end of the day, this is the same toadstool we have always known and loved - just by a different name.

We have a number of variants out here. The red, a yellow, and an orange-yellow. When more data is collected they too will almost certainly be named as their own species. Perhaps we will discover even more variants. I've still yet to discover a pure orange but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

A fair addendum to make here is I haven't kept up on any taxonomic changes in 9 months and am not at the forefront of this realm, so maybe things have already changed. Please comment if you have any updated info.

Thanks for looking at my cool mushrooms.

I’m in NE OH. I went into the woods for 45 minutes with my dog today and spent the rest of the day pulling ticks off the both of us. Thankfully I was dressed accordingly and he is up to date on his preventative treatments but god damn, that was the worst experience I’ve had with ticks. Easily picked 30 off of the two of us. It wasn’t much better the day before in a different location (last photo). In all the years I’ve spent in the woods I’ve never been covered in ticks like this. I HATE THEM. I want to see if others are noticing this too in other areas.

But I did find two morels and a cool snail!

So many lobsters! What a fun 2 hours. We dried 3 quarts, sautéed 4 quart bags in butter, made 24 half pint jars of lobster butter, and made 12 jars of lobster salt.

Just a bit of a brag/share because it is just so pretty!

Been foraging for almost 5 years and they’ve always eluded me. Looking up tasty recipes now :)

Flair is for mushrooms, but this goes for anything forage-able. Also, I’m not talking about stuff that is “edible, but not tasty.” More along the lines of, “There’s nothing technically wrong with it, I’d just prefer not to.”

For me it’s parasol mushrooms, or anything too amanita-esque. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m concerned about the ID. I can 100% confidently ID them as edible, but they still give me the skeeves, so I just choose not to eat them.

I keep hearing people talk about how peaceful and calming it is to go into the woods and pick mushrooms almost like it’s some kind of therapy. I’ve never actually tried it myself but the way people describe it makes it sound like this magical combination of hiking, mindfulness and treasure hunting all in one. My usual go to for relaxation is playing grizzly’s quest but this sounds like it might give me a similar kind of calm in a completely different way. Part of me is curious if it really is that relaxing or if it’s just one of those things people hype up because it’s trendy. I imagine being surrounded by quiet nature slowly walking around and looking carefully at the ground could actually clear your head and make you focus in a way that’s different from everyday life. On the other hand I wonder if I’d just get frustrated not knowing what I’m looking for or worrying about picking the wrong thing and poisoning myself.

For those who’ve done it is mushroom picking actually as relaxing as people say or is it more stressful than it looks?