Mushrooms: Score!

I hit a couple of yard sales this morning.  The prices were in fantasy land.  Cut glass candy bowls for +$20.  $35-to-$65 for a couple of clay jugs.  $800 for an oak dresser (not even quarter-sawn).

After hitting the yard sales I drove to one of the places I flagged using the "Senile" woody biomass method.  I did not have my Audubon field guide with me, so I was winging it from memory.  I found several specimens that tickled a few neurons.

I took them to one of the guys I am trying to curry as a mentor.  He was leisurely smoking a cigarette as I came through the door.  "Whatchya got?" he asked.

I pulled out my samples.

"Hmmm!" he said. "Where did you find them?"

I told him.

I asked him, "What are they?  Are they edible?"

"Well" he said, "they look like they might be some kind of Boletes".

He got up, walked out to his car and checked his oil and said,  "Gotta run.  See ya."

Strangely enough, he did not head into town but went in the direction from which I had just come.

The Polish Neighbor

Not being fully satisfied with the detail of the identification I dropped in on my Polish neighbor.

He asked, "Where did you find them?"

I said, "I will tell you in a minute.  What are they?"

"The big one, it is what you call a Porcini, a King Bolete.  It is the best.  The little one...it is a bolete too.  It is good but not as good.  The King, it cooks up meaty.  The little brown one, slippery."

While talking, my neighbor's wife walked up.  She picked up the King and sniffed it. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she made a sound that vaguely reminded me of the ice-cream shop scene in the movie When Harry met Sally.

Satisfied with the identification, we popped open Google Maps and I pointed out, to within fifty feet, where the Kings and the little browns were located.

His wife was in the kitchen gathering up bags.

Afterward

I took the two specimens and tucked them in just upwind of my most mature oak trees. It is my hope that some of their spoor will take hold and grow on my property.  It is a long shot but I would love to have mushrooms growing on my property that make the eyes of attractive women roll back in their heads.