Mobile, Alabama: Fungus Foray at Historic Blakeley State Park

Petite white mushroom, Historic Blakeley State Park, Alabama. October 2021.

 

Mushrooms. Umami. Mmmm.

Despite their predilection for growing on dead stuff, mushrooms are often pretty, or at least intriguing, and to bite one is to transport me to a sensual reverie of flavor, aroma, texture, and chewiness. Earthy.

Fungi Farm, a local commercial mushroom farm, hosted a mushroom foraging foray at Historic Blakeley State Park in early October.

Mushroom, Historic Blakeley State Park, Alabama. October 2021.

 

'twas hot and sweaty work, but so satisfying to be in the woods. We were a group of at least 25 people.

One of my favorites was this velvety mushroom that reminded me of the so-soft lamb's ear leaves. And on its underside, you could leave your fingerprint. 

Mushroom, Historic Blakeley State Park, Alabama. October 2021.

Mushroom, Historic Blakeley State Park, Alabama. October 2021.

Major lesson learned from the foray: Bring a pocket notebook! Alan, a Fungi Farm principal, helped identify the mushrooms we found, and although the names of many remain rooted in my head, the matching of same with the samples are fuzzy. Like said mushroom above. But some names include (mixing common names and scientific names of individuals and genus) turkey tail, false turkey tail, boletes, russula, and .......

 Below is a sample of the group's foraging finds.

Mushroom, Historic Blakeley State Park, Alabama. October 2021.

A slide show below on my cumulative mushroom collection over the years and locales.

 

 

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Tucson Lit: The Forest in the Seeds

Milkweed seed pod, Blue Jay Farm, Missouri. October 2010.

The real Wild Kingdom is as small and brown as a wren, as tedious as a squirrel turning back the scales of a pine cone to capture its seeds, as quiet as a milkweed seed on the wind - the long, slow stillness between takes. This, I think, is the message in the bottle from Thoreau, [in Faith in a Seed] the man who noticed a clump of seeds caught in the end of a cow's whisking tail ...

Source: Barbara Kingsolver, The Forest in the Seeds, from her 1995 book of essays, High Tide in Tucson.

Seed pod, Ha Ha Tonka State Park, Missouri. October 2010.

... As a nation we will never defer to the endangered spotted owl .... until we are much more widely educated. But the things we will have to know -  concepts of food chain, habitat, selection pressure and adaptation, and the ways all species depend on others - are complex ideas that just won't fit into a thirty-second spot. Evolution can't be explained in a sound bite.

Barbara Kingsolver

Curled seed pod, Alamogordo, New Mexico. July 2013.

Even well-intentioned educational endeavors like carefully edited nature films, and the easy access to exotic animals offered by zoos, are tailored to our impatience. They lead us to expect nature will be all storm and no lull. It's a dangerous habit. Natural history writer Robert Michael Pyle asks: 'If we can watch rhinos mating in our living rooms, who's going to notice the wren in the back yard'?

Barbara Kingsolver

Magnolia fruit, Opelousas, Louisiana. October 2015.

Related posts

• Tucson Lit: High Tide in Tucson
• Tucson Lit: Creation Stories
• Tucson Lit: The Forest in the Seeds

Colorado: Longmont: Roger's Grove Nature Area

View from Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Hoo wee, a spectacular mountain view from Roger's Grove Nature Area.

Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Roger's Grove is readily accessible off of a main thoroughfare in Longmont. Speaking of accessible, most of it's also, like Golden Ponds, friendly to wheelchairs, strollers, canes and the like.

Wildflowers. Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

May wildflowers blossomed.

Wildflowers. Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Wildflowers. Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Wildflowers. Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Wildflowers. Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Wildflowers. Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

The grasses were lush.

Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

A graceful stone mosaic showed the beauty in stones, hawks, and human artistry.

"Kestrel's Way." Roger's Grove Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Colorado: Longmont: Golden Ponds Nature Area

Wildflowers. Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

I took advantage of another warmish and sunny day in Longmont to check out the Golden Ponds Nature Area.

Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

 
Almost immediately, I was presented with this sobering sign:

Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Reminds me of a similar sign at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park outside Alamogordo, New Mexico. Where I was camping. Eek. Which led to this internal melodrama.

OK, I wasn't actually perturbed by the sign at Golden Ponds because the park is so open, it was daylight, and there were plenty of critters around that were much more tempting than me, such as geese, small dogs, and young children. Plus it is practically in a suburban subdivision.

Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Gosh, it was a pretty day. The walkways are flat and wide.

Wildflowers. Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Wildflowers. Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

Because it was May, pretty wildflowers bloomed. There were baby geese.

Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

There is a mixture of open field and creek-side woods.

Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

There are ponds for fishing.

Wildflowers. Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

The mountains frame the views.

As I write this, it brings quiet peace to revisit some of the park's flowers in this video:

Along a path, I met up with this handsome fellow:

Grasshopper. Golden Ponds Nature Area, Longmont, Colorado. May 2016.

He reminded me of his gentlemanly cousins outside Morgan City, Louisiana, at Brownell Memorial Park.