After The Work

My last post made it sound like I am a workhorse. Quite the contrary, I find time to enjoy life by getting some play in once in a while. It seems that sometimes the play is just as hard or harder than actual work.

After I had trimmed up the last tree on the logging road, I went for a woodland foray. Mike had told me that when he was driving the bulldozer up the logging road to bring a turn of timber down off the hill, he saw a mushroom that was growing.

Now you have to understand a couple of things about Mike. First, he has an uncanny sense about finding certain things like mushrooms, deer, elk, lost cows, a single bolt that fell into a pile of hay, or a miss-placed tool. He also has a mind like a steel trap and can remember a spot in the woods 250 feet off a deer trail that has a curve before a steep pitch, a fallen cedar snag on a north slope with a small dip on the other side that in the fall, supports a patch of hedgehog mushrooms.

So when he tells me that he saw a mushroom off to the side of the logging road, I keep my doubts to myself and go look for the mushroom I am positive he imagined.

He told me to follow this deer trail heading toward the head of the canyon off the left side of the road just past the 2 steep pitches.

From the beginning of the deer trail, I could not see any mushroom, I could barely see the deer trail. I fought my way through the tangle of branches, at about 100 feet in, under a clump of sword fern, I saw a mushroom, one mushroom. Old eagle eye spotted one mushroom as he was driving the skid road. Amazing!

Since dinner would be rather puny if I only added one mushroom, I continued the walk around the head of the canyon. It really was a pleasant day and my work was done, so I continued. After another half hour of searching, I did find a few more chanterelles to add to my collection.

It was a good day, and the mushroom, elk sausage pizza that night was wonderful!