On the bright side of all this warm rain, we've had a bumper crop of mushrooms...all varieties, all sizes, most of which are not familiar - (at least in a culinary sense) to me.
A familiar favorite is Chantrelle - and we've had several nice meals with them this year. I saw a small tray of "wild Chantrelle mushrooms" at Costco this week for $12.99 - So we are eating like royalty from our foraging efforts.
Around 20 years ago, we planted thousands of Christmas trees, and then spent every winter when we could have sold them in the South. So, we inadvertently created a serious mushroom habitat. I've joined a couple of mushroom identification groups in an effort to acquaint myself with all the varieties that are growing in our forest maze. I have a couple of experts from those groups who are scheduled to come out and do a mushroom ID walk with me this weekend. Even my picky eater husband loves scrambled eggs with Chantrelle mushrooms!
Meanwhile, a pregnant black cat was dumped on our property, and we're working to tame her and her three kittens enough to trap them and neuter them. A local woman who is knowledgeable about the process is working with us to obtain traps and an appointment to get this done. Once done, they will have their ears notched and we can bring them back to live here as outdoor "community cats". Our job is to feed and house them, which we're fine with. They are all very skittish, but come when called to eat. Kittens are very cute...two tuxedos, and one pure black with four white feet. I am just fully aware of the biotic potential of wild cats from my childhood. We lived at one point in a lumber camp where the cats had been allowed to run wild and had overrun the entire camp.
I planted the garden area to a cover crop of winter rye, and it's coming up nicely. No real frost yet, so dahlias and nasturtiums are still blooming, while all the orchard trees have dropped their leaves. We discovered another hornet nest in the big maple tree when the leaves fell
But it was so high up in the tree that we couldn't see how to remove it. Fortunately, the hornets had abandoned it, and the rain and wind destroyed it in about 3 days.
A familiar favorite is Chantrelle - and we've had several nice meals with them this year. I saw a small tray of "wild Chantrelle mushrooms" at Costco this week for $12.99 - So we are eating like royalty from our foraging efforts.
Meanwhile, a pregnant black cat was dumped on our property, and we're working to tame her and her three kittens enough to trap them and neuter them. A local woman who is knowledgeable about the process is working with us to obtain traps and an appointment to get this done. Once done, they will have their ears notched and we can bring them back to live here as outdoor "community cats". Our job is to feed and house them, which we're fine with. They are all very skittish, but come when called to eat. Kittens are very cute...two tuxedos, and one pure black with four white feet. I am just fully aware of the biotic potential of wild cats from my childhood. We lived at one point in a lumber camp where the cats had been allowed to run wild and had overrun the entire camp.
So, we now have a female cat with three kittens that are getting bigger every day. We're feeding them and getting ready to trap them and take them to the clinic in Lynnwood where they spay/neuter them and give them a rabies shot and send them home with us. I'm fine with 4 cats but that is at the very edge of my limit of outside cat tolerance.
But it was so high up in the tree that we couldn't see how to remove it. Fortunately, the hornets had abandoned it, and the rain and wind destroyed it in about 3 days.
Tony came over and changed out our well water tank and put in a new pressure switch, so I think we're ready to hibernate and quit with projects for a while as we enter into "the big dark" - not my favorite time of year.
I'm reading again - just finished "Hula" - a really good, but very hard to read book about Hawaii. Any place we have taken over has had its history and future seriously damaged. In my humble opinion, we just need to stay home and worry about our own country.
