Mushroom Season!

We love mushrooms. Not the bland white supermarket mushrooms. Wild Mushrooms. On Bowen Island, we're quite lucky to have a decent season in the fall and in the spring. In the spring, you can pick 10 pounds of prime oyster mushrooms in 15 minutes if you time it right. Starting in October, we do a weekly walk to see where the mushrooms are at, and what state they are in. Experience has taught us that if there is a drop in temperature about 10 days or so after a big rain in October, the Bolete mushrooms will always make an appearance. They seem to be a little late this year, but the first week of November shows promise. Walking around Killarney lake today, the Zeller's Bolete (boletus zelleri), so abundant at this time last year, have so far failed to make an appearance. Near the end of our walk, eagle eyed Miles found this clump of boletes, which we have tentatively identified as Lake's Boletus (suillus lakei). These ones, like most boletes, are edible, but not quite the prize we were looking for. Insects are fonder of boletes than most humans, and this patch might have been good last week, but today, the bugs appear to have snacked the best of this batch! We'll see what next week brings...