We went on a little camping expedition this weekend, and it wasn’t until the afternoon of the second day that I managed to find any of these beauties. Boletus Edulis. Also known as penny buns, porcini, cep, and steinpilz (depending on which European grandparents you had …). I’d been finding plenty of other boletes — especially the scabre stalks (Leccium Insigne), but I’d been skunked on the real prize, the delicious, aromatic, marvelous porcini. Part of my problem this year is that my secret spot burned up in a forest fire two years ago, so I’ve had to start over,…
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This picture isn’t great (I’m still getting the hang of my new camera) but this is a petrified tree trunk in a cave. Over the weekend, Chuck took me up to a secret spot he found a few months ago where there is a lot of petrified wood, and a number of these big tree trunks either hanging on the cliffs, or inside of erosion caves like this one. I promised I wouldn’t tell exactly where it is, but it was a lovely afternoon hike while big thunderstorms blew across the Paradise Valley. There was just enough cloud cover to…
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So far, so good on the unemployment thing. While it’s never ideal to be the one voted off the island, I find I don’t miss the job at all — I miss the people I worked with, but I don’t miss being chained to my desk from eight in the morning until six at night; I don’t miss the anxiety of thinking someone might send you an instant message while you were getting a cup of tea and then decide you’re slacking; I don’t miss being treated as an incompetent by my manager, and I’m beginning to get over the…
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Well, it finally happened — the layoff genie landed on my shoulder last Thursday. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, however, it was quite a shock to log in for that meeting and see an unfamiliar name on the call — an HR person. Nine years I’ve been at that job, and frankly, the past several have been pretty unpleasant. But it was a good job in a bad economy, and so I stuck it out until they decided that they don’t need editors any more, or they don’t like remote workers, or whatever corporate algebra goes into deciding who to vote…
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Yes folks, that’s an 8.4 ounce morel! Chuck found it up behind his cabin yesterday morning, growing just at the waterline of the irrigation ditch. It was a monster, but we managed to slay it, cook it in butter and vermouth, and enjoy it on rice (along with some pork chops) last night. It’s the only place we’ve had any luck this year at all, up behind his cabin. He found a couple of really little yellow morels, and one other black one, not nearly so big as this. It did rain a little this week, so here’s hoping the…
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On Sunday, Chuck and I went off on an adventure — we headed over to the backside of Livingston Peak to look for mushrooms and elk horns. We’d just crossed a ridge that bordered private land, and were talking about how goofy the Icelandic horses in the field looked with their long long manes when Chuck stopped suddenly. About 100 feet below us, under a big fir tree, was a bear. A pretty big bear. Not a stupendously big bear, but big enough. He didn’t seem to see us, and the Icelandic horses didn’t seem too upset, so we figured…
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The chickens spent the first night in their coop last night — we still need to build the fence, but the Carpenter came by and put the door on, and built a ramp for them — I think we’re putting the fence in tonight — they are very funny — they like exploring around, but they’re chickens, they’re not very brave. So this morning they poked their heads out of the coop, and negotiating the step to the ramp seemed very daring for most of them — the rooster of course was the first one out, checking out the scene…
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Here they are — the first morels! (I always want to sing that to the tune of The First Noel.) The Carpenter and I had a great time this weekend finding morels up behind his cabin — mushroom hunting is SO MUCH FUN! I get SO excited when I see one sticking up out of the duff (he laughed at me as I splashed through the irrigation ditch in my haste to get to a patch of three on the far side). Saturday night we had morels sauteed in butter with onions and garlic over steak, and last night I…
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Things have been a little crazy — work is work, life is good and I’m sort of just enjoying living it without the self-consciousness of blogging. But there are a few things I’ve been meaning to link to — First off — my friend Craig Arnold, who I went to grad school with at Utah, is missing in Japan. He was researching volcanoes and went missing last week. He’s an award-winning poet (author of Shells and Made Flesh, teaches at the University of Wyoming, and has a teenaged son. It’s all very upsetting — if any of you would like…
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They’re not really hairy, but I couldn’t resist the title. Sorry about the dearth of blogging — I’ve been off falling in love this spring, and well, as much as I adore you all my blog readers, the other guy is kind of distracting, in the best way possible. However, in the meantime, my cheeses have been growing the right sort of furry white mold that you want to see on a camembert. The directions said to ripen them in the fridge, but the fridge was a little too cold for mold — so I put the cheese “cave” container…