I picked Chanterelles this afternoon near Estacada, Oregon.
It was a beautiful and rainy day. Oregon hillbilly style. Conditions were very sopping! Still lots of mushrooms to be had though there were many that were too waterlogged such as this:
I think this mushroom is either a white Chanterelle or a waterlogged and color bleached regular Chanterelle?
I picked for just an hour and ended up with 1/4 of a grocery bag’s worth of somewhat soggy Cantharellus cibarius:
The grocery bag I stored them in was soaked upon arrival home so I put the mushrooms on a roasting rack and and directed a small fan towards them. They dried quickly:
I ran into Ron near the end of the day. He said that he’s new to the field though sure seemed a pro mushroom picker to me. Check out his day’s haul!
We chatted for a bit and he seemed a real nice guy. Offered up some tips. “Have tape to mark your way with.” “Which side of the tree does moss grow on?” Duh! “Chanterelles don’t like Firs much. They like Pines and Oregon Vine Maples.” “Don’t get caught in the woods after dark. In these woods it’s DARK.”
Two more mushrooms for the road.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says about sweetfern, the plant pictured below with mushrooms, “This nitrogen-fixing plant is used primarily as a ground cover for erosion control and species diversity in sterile, sandy soils. The abundant underground stems, or rhizomes, makes it especially suited to stabilizing steep, sandy banks. It makes a pleasing companion plant in a coastal setting with the low growing junipers, rugosa rose, bayberry, and beach plum.”
Comptonia’s nitrogen-fixing nature also means that it slows the ripening of many fruits and vegetables! It grows abundantly in the eastern Unites States and I have a small bush growing in one of my garden’s sunnier spots.
Family genes again rise to the surface — Maude Doolittle tought the Halle children abouot picking mushrooms in the woods and revine of Halle Farm.
There and at our South Farm we looked for chesnut stumps (now all gone) and would find beef straks — a reddish toung like mushroom. When fried in butter they exuded a red liguid that combined with the browning butter – incredible. In the fields we picked campestra. We picked rusala )did not eat) and stayed away from the deadly amenita muscara.
It appears alot of the chantrelles in your photos were pulled out of the ground. Not sure if you are new to picking but if you cut them at the ground level leaving the rootball behind they will regrow again and again even this season. Also the slimy one in the third photo may not be edible, but i may be wrong. It looks similar to an amenita.
Doran,
I never pull them out of the ground and only cut them at or near ground level. Yeah, I had the good sense to not pick the slimy one. I only go after Chanterelles. Cheers.