Welcome, 2019!

     Slugs always seem to find their
                    mushrooms.

And there are two reasons to welcome it. First is the usual hope for a good year ahead, both fungal and otherwise, Second, this year, is the profound hope that 2019 will be a vast improvement in mushrooming for us over 2018, which was surely the most dismal in our experience.

That old bugaboo, lack of timely rains in the summer, was no doubt the problem. Without that fresh rainfall in early August or so, our beloved mushrooms have no impetus to fruit. It’s just that simple.

We found few Chanterelles, and a handful of Matsutakes on one delightful day, but we never found any of our absolute favorite, the Cauliflower (Sparassis crispa), despite many fruitless trips to our perennial no-fail spot on Mt. Hood. Well, no-fail until this year, the worst in our history. It bordered on being embarrassing, and had we heard of others doing a lot better, we would have been embarrassed ourselves.

There were occasional - very occasional - high points.  The best of these was our attendance at the NAMA Annual Meeting and Foray, held near Salem, Oregon this past September.  There weren’t many mushrooms (like everywhere else!), but meeting up with dear old friends Dick and Agnes Sieger was, for us, truly the highlight of the whole affair.  Dick was the long-time and very capable President of the Puget Sound Mycological Society when we first joined it way back in the late ‘70’s, and Agnes virtually single-handedly produced the PSMS newsletter Spore Prints (the best we’ve ever encountered in the field) from then until now.  They’re truly delightful people, and we are committed to NEVER allowing that kind of time elapse again without contact with them.

              Urban mushrooms were
                   a bit more plentiful.

The lack of mushrooming (and the rains that cause them!) DID have a benefit for us, personally. As most of you know, we moved last summer to the Brightwood area on the western slope of Oregon’s Mt. Hood, and although the home we bought and moved into was wonderful in almost every way, it desperately needed for the huge deck to be sanded and a heavy coat of stain applied. While we were at it, we re-stained the house as well, along with new gutter screens and a few other outdoor odds and ends, including Mary’s renewal of the once-proud landscaping, which had fallen into neglect. So, every cloud has a silver lining. At least, we guess so.

But those things are behind us, and as we look forward to 2019, there’s no need for the rains to hold back. Indeed, they certainly don’t seem to be doing so thus far this winter! Keep it up, Oregon! Let’s have a good spring, abundant Morels and Boletes, and keep it going in the fall.

That doesn’t seem to be too much to ask of the Mushroom Gods, does it?

As always, in 2018 mushrooms delighted us
with their rainbow of colors.