First camp trip of 2017, with Joy and Campbell. Cloudy skies made our telescope viewing pretty bad, but we did find wild asparagus nearby. Pretty tasty foraging.
A nice shot of our Camp Inn teardrop trailer (aka Vuggie), with the REI Alcove tent for the galley and the side tent where Joy changes clothes and has a portable potty. We pull the trailer with the red Saturn Vue, which Joy named Candi.
Hall Valley Campground in Pike National Forest is one of our favorites during August as very tasty shrooms can be found nearby.
Joy and our dog Campbell always find Aspen Boletes (Leccinum insigne):
Last week Joy found some pretty Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) growing on aspen stumps, and they smell so good too.
While old T found chanterelles (Cantharellus ciborium) and Meadow Mushrooms (Agaricus campestris). Meadow and Prince Mushrooms (an earlier post) are better tasting relatives to the white button, portabello, and crimini shrooms you find in the produce section of grocery stores.
Yup, Hall Valley and surrounding forests are indeed a nice place to find tasty fungus treats…and apparently Girls just wanna have fungi!
The PRINCES (Agaricus augustus) are out!! This week while at Hall Valley we found a few, but never enough:
Campbell (our Westie) and T pose with three Princes on a slope at about 8100′ elevation. It’s our favorite Agaricus.
Here’s the best one, note the large cap with brown freckles on top, when young it’s cap is marshmallow shaped.
Like all Agaricus the gills are pink when young and turn brown with age; yup Agaricus species are also the button shrooms we buy in the stores. Note the shaggy stem and the ring around the stem, all Agaricus have them. Princes smell like almonds, that’s how T recognizes them.
Joy had never seen one before, so had to study the books to get acquainted.
Cooked up in olive oil and butter with lots of garlic. We think they are the best tasting of all the Agaricus, including all those store-bought Agaricus (aka portabellos, crimini’s, buttons etc.) Note also the 5-inch DO’s, great for cooking side veggies.
Fun times Colorado ‘shrooming, and with all the Hummingbirds in the mountains we thought we would add a feeder to Vuggie:
A Droll Yankees ($15 window-feeder) was on sale at True Value and it has large suction cups, insect/bee guards, and a cleaning brush.
A few minutes later:
Pretty fun in the Hall Valley Campground, as our feeder was attracting Broadtail Hummers (Selasphorus platycercus) all day. Fellow campers came over and enjoyed with us the Hummer acrobatics and territorial behavior.
Will try to post some more shroom pictures maybe tomorrow.
Pawnee Campground just west of Ward, Colorado is one of our favorites with Vuggie for the following reasons:
Paved asphalt off Highway 92 all the way (+10,500-feet above sea-level)
BEAR BOXES (note the brown one left of Vuggie above)
Nearby lakes (Brainard, Blue, Mitchell) with nice level hikes <3 miles
and, the local flora and fauna!
Thanx to Sue and Michael Ryan of Boulder, fellow Pawnee campers who took the pictures of the MOOSE BULLS* grazing near Brainard Lake, and graciously let us post here.
Happy Camping, T & Joy
* Like FISH the plural of MOOSE is MOOSE (NOT MEESE). But our favorite “Moose” plural was what our Labrador/Canadian clients call them: “Newfie Speed-bumps”
Ah, it’s apparently Colorado Monsoon season up here. This morning, towns along the Front Range are flooding, and Interstate 70 got partially blocked by a mudslide near Wolcott Junction.
It’s been raining all last night and all morning here in Lakewood, and Joy just spotted another leak in my gutters–oh, Joy! Rain gauge in the backyard says 2.7-inches since yesterday. The veggie gardens, trees, and grasses are loving it after all the +90°F temperatures. High today forecast in the mid-60’s–yeah, as old Colorado Boomers like us tend to wilt when temps hit 85°.
Us ‘shroomers love it too, ’cause it means in about 5 to 10 days T’s favorite big Rocky Mountain King Bolete mushrooms (aka porcini, penny bun, & Boletus edulis) will be sprouting under the pines at elevations above 7500 feet. By mid-August, Joy’s favorite the White Matsutake (Tricholoma magnivelare) will be hiding beneath the duff at the base of Ponderosa pines at elevations above 8000 feet.
We’re all hoping that August-2014 will be comparable to 2013 when shrooming up here was simply fabulous.
Best Regards, T and Joy
PS. So what do old Greek Boomers do while waiting for the rain to stop and shrooms to sprout? T’s making feta cheese today. One and a half gallons of fresh un-Pasteurized milk from our Cow-Share makes about 3 pounds of Feta — Kali Oreksi !