fall foraging feast

A beautiful walk in the woods with a camera is a wonderful thing any time of year... but THIS time of year is MUSHROOM SEASON! Oh my there was a beautiful assortment of mushrooms! My camera was so happy clicking away at colourful (toxic) looking fungal fruits. Our trail system was THOROUGHLY picked over for edible varieties.... kicked over and stomped through...sad sad for me. BUT I did a shaggy mane, a puff ball and some lobster mushrooms (which I have not tried before but were too gorgeous to leave behind). They are heavy and dirty and technically what makes them lobster mushrooms isn't the mushroom at all but the mushroom's parasite! Freaky, but cool.

 Just one of the 50 or more mushroom photos from today...

 Cleaned, it is much more appetizing..

 I decided to make a Newburg sauce with extra paprika (lobster mushroom, but no fish)...

 The finished meal with puff pastry and chard from the garden....

The whole family enjoyed it thoroughly and now I have one more food in my foraging repertoire.

Wildlife

We have a bear.

Not that I mind (actually it's pretty cool to think I share my territory with a big animal like that)
BUT this particular bear has been a bit destructive in it's hunt for fall food. Other than ripping limbs from my apple tree, (and massive poops) it took out 6 fence panels of my neighbour's backyard and left more poop and other debris right up on her sundeck!

Miraculously it has ignored the chicken coop even though it is directly adjacent to the apples trees.
The neighbour is worried about what it will do next. Or worse, what her husband will do next. So she called the conservation officer... And THATS how a live bear trap got taken through my driveway.  It's about 10 ft from my garage right now.

Last night the bear came back but was more interested in mauling my green bin than climbing into the trap for the big bag of stinky cat food. Smarter than your average bear? Or just a vegetarian? So the trap is still vacant... for now.