Mushrooms on the Mind

This wet season has caused lots of varied and cool-looking mushrooms to pop up all over the place.

A pod (is that the right word?) of mushrooms near the driveway.

It got me thinking about mushroom foraging, and what is edible vs. not.

Right now, I have no idea.

Safe, wild mushroom foraging is now officially something I want to look into. I need a book with great illustrations and details (Christmas present, anyone?).

A friend of mine was talking about a buddy of his who had a field guide. He'd go out in the woods at camp-outs and return with a basket full of mushrooms they'd fry up over the fire. He painted a very cool picture. We have plenty of rocky and heavily shaded areas that mushrooms would do very well in (as opposed to, ya know, everything else), so potentially "planting" some is not out of the realm of possibility.

But this 8" shroom, whilst tasty-looking, very well could kill me. I just don't know. But I want to know.

"Yum!" Or is that, "Oh no, call a priest!"?