Yup, that’s me. Me and the biggest Chanterelle I’ve ever found. The photo’s by ‘Whatia’ Howell. Claudia and I went picking Sunday and were utterly clueless that it was the 2nd day of rifle deer season in Oregon. After meeting several nice fellows with rifles over their shoulders we avoided parking near other vehicles and whistled A LOT. I made Claudia sick of Yellow Submarine in a hurry.

Claudia has editited a lot of photos by your’s truly and has been such a pleasure to work with. She’s retiring in November after 33 years working at The Oregonian. She’s taking their buyout package which sounds like a super sweet deal. Thanks, congratulations and cheers Claudia!

They were exactly where I found my first patch in 2007 only 2 weeks or so earlier.

It was more than a moment actually and definitely more than 6 minutes that these 2 tangoed. As a gardner it’s somewhat reassuring to see these Hemiptera(the order aphids fall into) chow hounds getting busy in your yard. I hope that they were hungry and feasted on aphids after.

Later the same day this moment was hard to miss on the shelf above our kitchen sink:

We keep this Venus Fly Trap near our fruit bowl and it captures many flys. Not until recently did I see the plant snap shut on a spider.

We saw a fair number of moldy ones:

“chan•te•relle | noun. an edible woodland mushroom with a yellow funnel-shaped cap and a faint smell of apricots, found in both Eurasia and North America.

ORIGIN late 18th cent.: from French, from modern Latin cantharellus, diminutive of cantharus, from Greek kantharos, denoting a kind of drinking container.”

There’s nothing quite like picking your own chanterelles then frying them up the same day with unsalted butter, shallots plus a touch of soy sauce, sugar and creme before tossing the fresh-from-the-woods golden sauce with some pasta. Yum. I love eating chanterelles although the stumbling through the deep and dark woods might be the best part.

It’s raining hard here and the leaves are turning and beginning to drop.

It did actually put a few on last year but, following instructions from a friend, we cut the fruit early in order to focus growth on the roots. Here’s to growing your own and not letting the dogs get to the goods before we do.