We made salmonberry jam for the first time last week and it’s delicious. Wanting another couple of jars, I decided to pick some berries along the salmon stream running through the woods near my house. The picking was good – I filled a Nalgene with fresh berries in short order. Along the way I kept an eye out for mushrooms and found some gems.

After returning from my trip my daughter and I decided a day of geocaching was in order. We went to the Grand Forest to look for a couple of new caches.

I spent Saturday and Sunday with a couple of friends escaping the rain and cold in Puget Sound by traveling over the Cascades to the Eastern slopes for an overnight backpack to Ingalls Creek. We had originally planned a trip to Spider Meadows but some concern about snow caused a change in plans.

An immature Questionable Stropharia, Stropharia ambigua, growing in the backyard. Some say it’s edible, others say it tastes like old leaves, interesting.

Ramaria, another new genus (for me) I found growing under a Douglas-fir.

A neighbor had a tree fall and within days a new colony of mushrooms had invaded.

I’ve been reading Winter World by Bernd Heinrich and I’ve been encouraged to look more closely at my woods. So this weekend I took a path I don’t usually take and surprise! I’ve seen an earthstar before but this one is in better condition.

Amanita muscaria, one of the most recognizable and widely encountered in popular culture, especially children’s books – it’s constantly appearing in my daughter’s. I always associate this mushroom with the Smurfs. This is odd, of course, because it’s hallucinogenic – perhaps that explains the Smurfs.

Meet my new favorite mushroom: Helvella lacunosa, or the Fluted Black Elvin Saddle. Today was a bumper day for mushrooms – my daughter and I photographed at least five or six new species for the season.

Another mushroom from the trip to the Arboretum, I can’t identify it though.