Mushrooming Log
2007

1/2  This year is starting off warm.  Temperatures are predicted to stay in the 40's and 50's for about a week.  I went and explored the site Jerry showed me in Sutton.  Looking for any mushroom that might pop up but in particular for Chaga and Oysters.  Saw a Fisher near Reservoir #6.

1/3  Went checking Pisgah Woods in Northboro for Chaga.  Found a few small once and one that looked like it just popped out last year.

1/4  Back to exploring the Sutton site.  I am impressed with the rich emerald color of the moss in the woods.  With the winter grays, it is good to see some bright color.  Since I will be ordering a microscope I decided to pick up some samples of those Oysters that I found growing on a black birch a while back.  They still looked in good shape.

1/5  I ordered the microscope today.  With the shipping and an optional medical slide kit, it came to $840.  One of the Oyster caps produced a spore print.  So I will have spores to look at when the scope arrives.

1/7  Yesterday it got up to 70.  Today it got to 45 or so.  I went to Rutland and checked some of the old Maple trees for Oysters.  Nothing.  I found about 5# of Chaga though.  It was growing on Yellow birch.

1/18  I got the microscope on the 14th of January but had problems with the software so that I could not take pictures.  I had to ask for a RMA number before Great Scopes answered my e-mails requesting support.  A rep from Accu-Scope described the process of capturing and saving the image.  Here is the first picture.  Now, it is full steam ahead?

1/22  Today Accu-Scope rep came up with the suggestion of using Area White Balance feature on the software.  It works but is cumbersome and time consuming to apply.  Also it does not work that well at low magnifications and replaces the red with grey instead of white.   Take a look at the pictures.

 1/30  Received 5 prepared slides from John Lind of Great Scopes.  The frosted filter was not included in the shipment.  I tested the scope on the 5 prepared slides.  The slides were blood stain, Paramecia, pumpkin stem, hydra and fly wing.  For some reason the hot spot did not appear in some of the pictures taken at 100X.  Take a look at the pictures.

2/1  Yesterday I got the frosted filter from Great Scopes.  This morning I took pictures using the filters.  Take a look at the pictures.

3/3  Nice sunny day with the temperature getting up into the low 50's.  After the 1.9" of rain yesterday there were puddles and streams everywhere.  I went to Pisgah Woods.  On the way over there, I saw a couple of chipmunks scoot across the road.  I read somewhere that they get up in March, make some babies then go back to sleep till the babies are due in May. No morning sickness that way.  Found the wet snow hard to walk on.  A seasonal stream was going over its banks.  Got my feet wet, so cut my outing short. 
Found one clump of mushrooms that looked alive.  They look like miniature Turkey tail.  The largest cap was about an inch in size.  I have seen these before.  They appear all dried up until the rain wets them, then they appear to come to life.
Even the ubiquitous green crust on trees looked attractive.  This 5" diameter rosette was on a pine.

3/11  Bill Neill took some spore pictures by simply holding the camera lens against the eyepiece of the microscope.  They came out quiet good.  The digital camera was in auto mode.  It was set for macro.  Here I took the pictures both with the scope camera and through the eyepiece with a Canon Power Shot S2IS.

3/25  Yesterday and today I went to Lincoln RI to learn about limestone and explore some of the public land for some limestone in the wild.  I checked two sites but since I did not know what limestone looked like, I visited the Conklin Limestone Company yard to see examples of what I was looking for.
One of the sites had an old railroad bed as a trail.  It looks like it was from the time of the coal fired locomotives since there were coal clinkers all over the place.  The railroad bed ended at Manton Reservoir.  I suspect that this reservoir was once a lime quarry and the train was used to haul out the lime rock.  On this property I found a good size Chaga on a Black Birch.  Take a look at the pictures.
I met a local walking a dog and pumped him for information about the site.  Since he was not a wild mushroom enthusiast he was not much help.  On the way out I met him again and gave him some Chaga to try.  After that he admitted that he has met mushroomers at both sites I explored and that this site has a great deal of mushrooms in the summer and fall.  See, it pays to bribe people :o)  On the Internet I learned that botanists come to this site to study plants that grow only where there is limestone.  I look forward to seeing what mushrooms I will find there this season.

4/10  This is turning out to be another cold spring.  Daylight temperatures in the high 30's and low 40's, nighttime temperatures below freezing.  The progress of Morel, from the south, has stopped in southern Michigan.

4/27  More rain today.  It is up to 7.28", for the month, here in Shrewsbury MA.  Went East today even though the rain was drizzling.  Photographed Morel indicators but did not find one Morel, yet.  It has to be soon!  Tomorrow I am going out with Jerry.  That young fellow (it is all relative) claims he can smell mushrooms.  It's like having a Morel bloodhound on your side.  If they are out there, we will find them! 

4/28  Went out with Jerry to check out an old Grafton apple orchard.  We checked countless old apple trees, Aspen, American Elm, and White Ash, but found no Morel.  Jerry did not even smell them :o)  But there are signs that the fungal world is finally coming to life!  These I would place in the interesting category.  I am not sure that they even need a name, unless you recognize them and wish to pass it on to me.  I put three pictures per page so that they would not take too long to load for those of you who have dialup connections.  Take a look at what we found.

4/29  Went to Lime Rock Preserve in Lincoln RI.  Walked around the reservoir trying to locate the outcroppings of limestone and limestone marble.  On the way I saw a dead, fallen Black Birch that has several Ganoderma lucidum (I believe) growing on it.  Must be once that wintered over.  Just past the dam I found quite a bit of limestone and marble pieces that were used to pave the road/trail.  Some larger pieces of marble were laying on the side of the road.  Saw large stone outcroppings but could not tell if any of that was limestone or limestone marble.  That place needs more exploring.  Take a look at the 2 pages of pictures.

5/1  A walk in Boynton Park.  Remembering what Bill Neill said about plants that like to grow in calcareous soil, I decided to go to Boynton Park and see if they were up. 

5/07  After hearing that Noah and his club found 56 Black Morel in New Hampshire, I went out and checked two spots today.  In Westboro I found one brown cup mushroom about 3" in diameter.  This is the one I called Veined Cup last year.  I think it is the Pig's Ears aka Discina perlata.  I put it on microscope slides to deposit spores.  I will see if I get a spore deposit and then check the spores under the microscope.

5/12  Yesterday Shrewsbury got only 15/100 inches of rain but Worcester got 1/2".  I went back to Westboro to see if I could find another Pig's Ears since the first once did not yield a spore print.  Found one dead apple tree with a few hundred to a thousand Mica Cap.  I was able to get a spore print and took pictures of the spores using the new, improved microscope head.  I would say the spores confirm my ID.  Then I found a rotten log with tinny orange colored balls growing on it.  Lastly I found an old washed out Dryad's Saddle that had an unusual wavy edge.  The pictures are here.

5/16  Finally some rain!  Got 2" plus from thunderstorms. 

5/20  It is still raining.  We wind up with 3.3" of rain from this storm.  Yesterday Jerry went to Dudley and found 164 Morel in an apple orchard in the rain.  Today he went to another orchard and found 68 more!  So, in just two days he got more Morel then then he ever did before for any year.  Looks like the Morel are late this year but they are popping up in quantity in just about any apple orchard.  I am going out to check apple orchards tomorrow :o)
Today I checked an Elm grove in Shrewsbury, for Morel.  None.  I saw one water soaked mushroom growing on wood and jumped to the conclusion it was a Platterful.  Looking at the pictures, later, I concluded it was the Fawn Mushroom.

5/21  Went checking old apple orchards.  Did not find any Morel in Grafton but did find some fungi to make things interesting.  Take a look at these.  Then I went to Westboro and checked a few apple trees there.  Found one young Big Foot Morel a couple of interesting fungi.  Check these out.

5/27  After two days in bed, my back pain eased up and I took a short walk in the woods today.  Found another large Yellow Morel and several Peziza cups.  I am again trying to get spores to study under the microscope.  When you do not need the spores from a cup fungus they release them into the morning sun as you walk past them.  When you want them, the cups hold on to them like misers.  I might bathe one with sterile water and wash some spores off the inside surface of the cup, if I do not get a spore print by tomorrow morning.   More to the story, in pictures.

6/3  Last three days it rained less than 1/4".  Tonight and tomorrow morning they are promising some real rain.  I went out today to one of my spots in Westboro.  I saw Platterful Mushrooms, Dryad's saddles, Mica Caps and two cup fungi that I tentatively identified as Pigs Ears.  I am trying again to get a good spore print on a microscope slide.  Then there were a couple of surprises.  When I cleared the debris from around the first cup I found, I discovered two round white things that looked like puffballs.  I picked one.  It did not feel like a puffball!  It had a jelly feel to it with a hard center.  It was harder to rip out than a puffball.  It felt like I was ripping roots.  It started to stain a wine color where I handled it.  Take a look at the pictures.  The second surprise was what looked like a Pale Bolete at first glance.  It was growing from under a rotting log laying on the ground.  When I picked it, it was tightly connected to the log.  I was surprised to see that it had gills.  It had a ring and the flesh is yellow.  I put out the cap out for a spore print.  From the look of the spore deposit on the ring it looks like the spore print will be reddish brown.  Take look at the pictures.

6/6  Since Max likes the tea from Ganoderma tsugae so much and even calls it Reishi, I went looking for it today.  I remembered a pine/hemlock grove in Westboro and some of those trees were fallen by high winds a few years back.  I found one hemlock, about 2' in diameter that had the top broken off about 12' off the ground.  The broken off part had only moss growing on it but the 12' section still standing was loaded with tsugae!  Take a look at the pictures.
While I was in Westboro I stopped off to check on the stinkhorn egg.  It grew to the size of the one I took.  I found 2 others that are growing close to the trunk of the apple tree.  All 3 are about the same size.  I also checked the log on which I found that one mushroom that I temporarily identified as Big Laughing Gym, or Gym for short :o)  It produced a nice spore print and I have it posted here.  Forgot to mention that I smelled it and it had a mediciney smell to it.

6/13  Just got back from Dennisport.  Found no mushrooms in Wellfleet.  Went to check on the stinkhorn eggs in Westboro.  The original egg had cracks in it but was still whole.  There were 2 stinkhorns up only 2 feet away.  Both were kind of old and eaten up.  Then turned around and saw two more.  The fifth was in the best shape.  I also found 2 clumps of brown cup fungus.  Still have not figured out what they are.  Will again try to get a good spore print.  In Grafton I found my first bolete of the year.  It was kind of wormy inside so I did not get a cross-section picture.  I have no idea what it is.  Take a look at the pictures.

6/16  Went with Jerry to a place where he found boletes in the past.  We did not find any boletes but found a few mushrooms.  Being his place, he spotted all the mushrooms :o)  The first mushroom he found was an oyster, later he spotted some coral.  Then he found a newly awakened, from hibernation, Artist's Conch.  Also a group of six LBMs.  To finish things off he found an awesome little yellow mushroom growing on a twig.  Take a look.

6/19  After only about .05" of rain a couple of days ago, agarics popped out on the lawn outside my apartment door.  Same place as last year but this time it was in better shape.  Overall it looks like an Amanita but I can not tell if it has free gills. Pictures.

6/21 The rain situation is not good.  Mushrooms are hard to come by.  I went to Grafton today to see if I could find that Ganoderma that Jerry saw last year.  If I found the right stump, it was not there.  I did find one that looks like what he described in another place where one grows out of buried wood every year.  I saw a wild turkey with about a dozen newly hatched chicks.  Since she wanted to protect the chicks, she did not fly away when I approached in my car.  I snapped the pictures right from the car, using a telephoto lens.  Things are so bad, mushroom wise, that I have resorted to taking pictures of an LBM :o)  Take a look.

6/22  Things can get ugly if you eat Ganoderma tsugae :o)

6/23  Today we went to another place in Jerry's neck of the woods.  He heard from an acquaintance who lives nearby, that they had a lot of rain from a thunderstorm, last Sunday.  We also have had some rain in the last two days.  This place was new to him.  He found it by using Google aerial photos. He was looking for places that might have some pine or hemlock. The first mushrooms we found were a lot of inky caps growing on a cow manure pile that a farmer has near his corn field.  On the way we found one bolete that was under attack by a Hypomyces. It looked like it might have been a small Bicolor Bolete.  Then I found what I believe might be a Pleurotus dryinus and Jerry found a slime mold.  Then Jerry found a Chaga that has fallen off a tree and I found Chaga on a living black birch.  As soon as we got into the hemlock, Jerry soon found one G. tsugae on a fallen, bark free and rotting, hemlock.  Then he found more and more.  When we were loaded up with tsugae we headed home.  We were afraid that if we explored more, we would find more tsugae.  Take a look at the picture story.

6/30  Today I went back to the hemlock woods that Jerry showed me. There were large puddles of water so it looks like there was a good size cloudburst over those woods. It is too soon to see new mushrooms but I did find a few Variable Russula and white mycelium patches all over the trail.

I went to pick that large Chaga that I spotted last time I was there. Even though I purchased tree climbing equipment I opted for a less strenuous way of getting that Chaga. Yesterday I purchased a 12” long cold chisel. I used a grinding wheel to sharpen the chisel then attached it with twine and epoxy cement to a paint roller handle. The paint roller handle snaps onto a telescoping painting pole that can be extended to 11’. I used a rock to tap on the end of the pole to detach the Chaga from the yellow birch.

My second goal was to find a hemlock with G. tsugae growing on it that Jerry missed :o) SUCCESS!! I found a fallen hemlock with about 15 mature tsugae growing on it. At first I thought they were last year mushrooms because they were a flat brown color but it turns out that they were covered with their own brown spore deposit. Now I want to slice them up and dry them for many cups of tsugae tea to come!

7/3  Heard from Jerry and he told me about another entrance to hemlock woods.  I was able to find the parking lot to the place and decided to explore the area just in back of the parking lot.  It lead to a nice hemlock grove and a wet area.  I found about an 18" Yellow Birch with about 10# of Chaga on it.  I had to go back to the car to get my painting pole with the chisel on the end to detach it from the tree.  I harvested about 6#.  I also found a 2.5' diameter hemlock stump that has 24 mature G. tsugae growing on it.  The mushrooms were covered with spores.  I took only one and left the rest.  What I have at home will supply me with tsugae tea until next year :o)  Never got a chance to explore the trail that Jerry recommended.  He said he found some Bitter Bolete on that one.  Pictures.

7/6  Yesterday and last night we got .64" of rain.  This morning I found several small Amanita growing on the grass under oaks.  I identify them as Volvate Amanita aka Amanita volvata.  Things are so slow I am even interested in Amanita :o)  This should make George Riner happy!  Tomorrow I will go out to find real mushrooms :o)

7/9 Yesterday and last night we got .72" more rain.  According to my new rain gauge, we got .95" of rain,  The first figure is from the Shrewsbury Weather Station (SWS).  SWS July total 1.46".

7/11  Today I went up to the athletic field on Maple St. in Shrewsbury to pick up some large Artist's Conchs that I have noticed growing on a large oak snag.  Shortly before I got to the conchs I noticed a mushroom growing on the side of a stump.  I make it to be a young Berkeley's Polypore.  Under the oak snag I found a small, interesting, gilled mushroom from wood that was sticking out of the ground.  Included in these pictures is of another mushroom that I found growing on a stump in Sutton yesterday.  The rest of the story in pictures.

7/20  I picked the large fruiting body of the G. curtisii suspect and used a chemical KOH on different parts.  It was difficult to remove.  The stem could not be cut since it was as hard as wood. The cap was attached to the bark of the stump.  The rest of the story.

7/21  Though we had only about 1/3" of rain in the past week it looks like some mushrooms have anticipated the rain and came up ahead of it.  The boletes I found, today, look like they are about 5 days old.  The first one is a really colorful one with a cap of about 6".  I found several Boletus separans but the worms got to them before I did.  Then I found 4 young amanita growing close together and I thought I found my first Death Cap but it might too early for that one.  I left 3 to grow and develop. I will check on them in a couple of days.  I found a Ganoderma curtisii growing about 2 feet from where I found it growing last year.  These are much prettier than the large type I found in Shrewsbury.  Pictures.

7/23  Revisited the mystery Amanita.  Found a few mushrooms but not any in edible condition.  It continues to be dry in this area.  I now make the Amanita to be Amanita porphyria.  Still looking for the Death Cap :o)

7/28  Today we are finally getting some rain.  Only 1/3" in 24 hours but it is better than nothing.  Earlier I checked on the Ganoderma in Shrewsbury and Grafton.  Surprisingly it is still growing and developing in spite of the dry weather.  Here I show the results of 12 days of growth.

7/29  Went to Tsugae Woods to see if anything was popping up.  I checked the hemlock that had 24 tsugae on it.  Twenty of them are still there.  They are still covered with spores on top.  This is after a hard rain so either they are water proof or it was a new release of spores.  The mushrooms have not grown noticeably.  In a swampy area I found a small Lactarius growing in moss.  I was thinking "Candy Cap".  There was no odor that I could notice.  An unusual small bolete.  A bright yellow little mushroom with a hole in the cap leading to a hollow stem.  Pictures.

8/1  Found an interesting mushroom on the lawn.  It looks sort of like the Parasol but it is shorter in statue and does not have a ring of any sort.  Went to Grafton and decided to harvest the Ganoderma curtisii when I noticed some critter nibbled on it.  I did the KOH test on it.  Found a few interesting mushrooms there also.  Visited the curtisii stump on Maple St.  Took pictures and picked one to run KOH test on it.

8/3  Went to Tsugae Woods again.  Could not find another Candy Cap, but did find a small patch of Chanterelle and got about a quart of them.  I think I found another Boletus longicurvipes.  A slim white mushroom with very crowded gills that I believe is Melanoleuca alboflavida.  Found a couple of Destroying Angels.  A couple of small polypores on dead cherry twigs.  They were growing with the pores growing away from the twig but then started growing with the pores facing the twig.  Stopped by the hemlock snag and studied the G. tsugae.  Noticed the spore deposit on the bark of the hemlock and the ground.  I used damp paper towels to wipe off the spores from the top of some of the caps. 

8/5  Went to Westboro to check on the Smooth Chanterelle Patch.  There are really four patches at this site.  The smallest was ready for picking the others are just stating to pop out of the ground.  I managed to get a quart or so.  Now maybe I will have my first wild mushroom fry of the year.  The quart of Chanterelles I found the other day I wound up giving to a 90 year old Russian Babushka who I am sure will enjoy them more than I would have :o)

I finally found a Rosecomb freak!  It was on a single small Russula.  Now that I was introduced to Candy Caps I am starting to pay attention to LBMs.  I found this little fellow growing right on the trail.  It had a tough thin stem.  The cap was about 3/8".  It looks like hair like things under the cap.  Could it be a Cort?

Then there was what looked like some Amanita that got taken over by some Hypomyces. 

8/9  Went to Tsugae Woods with Jerry.  Found quite a few mushrooms but not much edibles.  The G. tsugae were again covered with spores.  In the interesting department Jerry found a really slimy slime mold.  It was actually dripping.  There were a lot of "jelly baby" looking mushrooms.

8/11  Went to A1 site in Westboro to check the vernal pool.  It was completely dried up.  Found a couple of small mushrooms growing on an old stump.  From a distance they looked like small bolete.  At close inspection they look like baby Velvet-footed Pax.  Found my first Birch Bolete that was actually growing within 6" of a small grey birch.  At Sawink Farm I found several bunches of Golden Spindles growing on the trail.  Pictures.

8/12  Went to Grafton.  Found one Bicolor Bolete.  Found one young handsome Boletus separans but the worms beat me to it.  Found several wormy X. affine.  A baby Amanita rubescens?  A large Amanita in different stages of growth.  The largest cap about 5".  Pictures.

8/14  The Maple Street Ganoderma keeps making new mushrooms.  On 7/20 I picked the large Ganoderma off the stump.  On 7/28 I noticed that new growth was starting where I removed it.  I decided to photograph it as it grew.  This is the 5th Ganoderma to grow off that stump, this year.  Today I went to photograph it and noticed two new buds.  So this stump has produced 7 mushrooms so far!

8/21  Still no rain.  Only about 1/2" this month, so far.  The lawns are turning brown.  On the 17th I went to Westboro.  I did find about a quart of Smooth Chanterelles.  Saw very few other mushrooms.  Today I decided to get an updated picture of the Ganoderma on Maple St.  Nearby, I spotted several mushrooms growing on the lawn.  I think I might have found my first ever Meadow Mushroom.  I had them on my mind since David posted that he found some on a lawn.  Pictures.

8/22  Hunting mushrooms in a bog.  Got to go where there is still some moisture.  I explored an area of the Tsugae Woods where it probably is swampy when there is rain but right now it is dry and mossy for the most part.  There is a lot of sphagnum and other kinds of moss growing.  I even found a small stand of Eastern White Cedar.  There were q good variety of mushrooms here.  Nothing that I recognized as good edibles, but interesting.  Pictures.

8/31  The draught continues.  Lawns are brown.  Only about half an inch of rain for the month of August.  Heard from Jerry that he found some Oysters by where he lives in Sutton.  He could not tell what kind of tree they were growing on so I decided to go check.  Now that I have a microscope I wanted to compare the appearance of the Oysters that grow on Aspen and those that grow on other trees.  I was not able to find the Oysters but saw this two toned bracket mushroom that looked different from what I have seen before.  It was growing on a fallen dead birch.  There were about a dozen of them and they were alive, surprisingly.  The other thing about it is that it bruised reddish brown where handled.  By Gary's guide it looked like the description for Thin-maze Flat Polypore fit, sort of.  I would not call the color of bruising as being "pink".  Also the picture looked nothing like my mushroom.  Than I checked Roger Phillips guide and he calls the mushroom "Blushing Bracket".  He calls the bruising "pink" to "reddish brown".  Also his pictures looked closer to what I had.  I decided to call it Blushing Bracket.

9/2  Found a large variety of mushrooms growing in a bog in Oxford.  Thought I found more of the American Amanita ceciliae but it turned out to be A. fulva.  Then I found a mature version of the baby Cort that I found before.  Also this red mushroom that I have no idea what it is.  Then there is this LBM that has an unusual shaped spores.  And finally some orange colored jobbies.

9/5  Started wondering about that red mushroom as to whether the spores are really spiked.  Went back to the bog to see if some more of those red mushrooms were still around.  Actually there were more of them than 3 days ago.  I investigated why they are so hard to rip out.  The stem appears to be attached to a net like root system.  I got a few more facts, in picture form.  I put out 3 caps on slides to get spore prints.  I will leave them overnight to deposit a spore print.  I will be careful to note if the spore print will be white or some off white color.

9/7/08  Went to the bog to pick some mushrooms for the Athol Fungus Fair.  Found one mushroom that I thought was the Sunny-side-up mushroom but I was wrong (again).  It did not have the white in the cap nor the height
http://mushroomhunter.net/interestingm3.htm

9/12  Checked a large field of cow corn for smut.  Found some damaged ears but do not know if it was by corn smut.  Got to look earlier next year.  Found the chicken coop where Jerry got his chicken for the Athol Fair.  This the first time I saw it growing on a living White Ash.  It grew there during the dry period so it must have dapped into the living tree sap.
The Laccaria in the bog has wilted.  Like so many mushrooms they appear to be attacked by other fungus, the spores delivered by the rain.  I checked a few of them for the mycelium at the base of the stem and found it gray in color.  No longer white or violet.  Check the pictures.

9/19  Checked Beabea Woods in Falmouth.  Found enough Honey Mushrooms to make several meals.  Found some kind of tough stemmed mushroom growing in a colony on top of stump by the Conservation headquarters.  Later went to Race Point and Marconi Station areas to hunt mushrooms with a lady that came from Russia to visit her brother for six months.  We found only Honey Mushrooms there also.  We got enough for her, her brother and brother's wife for several meals.  This is the first time they ate Honey Mushrooms.  They agreed with me that Honeys taste better than Red Scaber Stalk that they usually eat :o) 

9/29  The draught continues.  Went to the Oxford bog to see what I could find.  Was pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of pale Scaber Stalks growing in a wet area.  Did not notice any staining when broken or cut.  I ID it as Leccinum holopus aka White Bog Bolete.  Also found a large, colorful Cort.

10/11  Had about an inch of rain in the past few days, here on Cape Cod, and the mushrooms responded. First stop, yesterday, was at Marconi Station site. First sighting was of Strawberries and Cream growing under Pitch Pine. Found a few Gypsy. Found an interesting slimy Cort that I identify as Cortinarius collinitus. A mushroom that has universal veil made of slime! Found a few Gypsy Mushrooms and a few Sweetbread Mushrooms. Of course some Reds and Boletus projectellus. Amanitas all over the place. Found one giant growing next to Rt. 6 that looked like a A. muscaria under attack by a Hypomyces. Next stop was Province Land where there were more Reds and Slippery Jack relatives. A yellow version of A. muscaria (I think) growing in groups. Last stop was Truro to check for Matsutake. Looks like it is a bit early for them since I found only one that was still closed. Will return there on Monday, if I can.

10/23  This was the most productive day of the year at Province Land, Cape Cod.  Red Scaber Stalks where everywhere.  They were young and in prime condition.  Then there was a different looking Amanita.  Also a light colored polypore attached to the base of a pitch pine.

12/7  At the beginning of November I came down with an illness that resulted in my spending most of my time in bed.  After about a week and a half I entered a hospital for tests, at the suggestion of my primary care physician.  I stayed 4 days.  The hospital did not do anything to relieve my symptoms of fatigue, high blood sugar readings (300-540) and diarrhea.  I got only 2 trays of food in the 4 days I was at the hospital.  At the end they even deprived me of liquids, for about 10 hours. to prepare me for the colon test.  They could not tell me when they planned to do the test.  At 3pm on 11/14 I  dressed and left the hospital.  On the way home my friend stopped at McDonalds and I bought a Big Mac meal with a diet coke.  I ate about half the meal with relish.  I had to drink about a gallon more of liquids before I was re-hydrated.
Eventually I went to the Internet to try to diagnosed my own problem.  I looked up Critical Fatigue Syndrome.  The symptoms appeared to fit.  I learned that doctors have difficulty recognizing this disease.  I also learned that CFS is triggered by some change in a lifestyle.  I remembered complaining to my cardiologist about a new blood pressure medication he prescribed.  It caused occasional dizziness and I felt more tired.  He kept increasing the dose to 200 mg a day till he got the blood pressure where he was satisfied.  I continued to lose strength with every increase in dose.  I complained to him and my other doctors but they felt that keeping the pressure down was of primary importance.  Even though I lost about 35# the hospital did not decrease my blood pressure medication.  I got very low pressure readings in the hospital.   I decided that TOPROL most likely triggered the CFS.  I was taking another blood pressure medication at that time, 40 mg of Enalapril Maleate and I had lost 35# so I decided that it might be safe to drop TOPROL.  Two days after I stopped taking the medication my energy returned.  My blood sugar continued high.  It looked like the TOPROL prevented my body from using the insulin injections.  About a week later the insulin started to work again, just before I saw my doctor.  My blood pressure measured 117/67 when I saw my doctor.  No replacement for TOPROL was necessary.  I suspect that the high blood sugar, for over a month, did some damage to my internal organs.  My doctor tells me that my hemoglobin is low and that my liver is not functioning properly.  These might correct themselves after more rest from TOPROL but if not, I will trust the doctors to solve and correct the problem.

Mushrooming Log 2006
Mushrooming Log 2005
Mushrooming Log 2004