Another Amanita post!

This morning was a little rough...

So, I am constantly drying these mushrooms right now and I have a whole operation going. That process I will save for a different post though, and I will skip that for now!

Tomorrow, I am having surgery and I will be out of the game for a few days so I wanted to get in one last harvest before I am bedridden for a little while.

After I got all the kids into kindergarten this morning around 8 o'clock I set out to two separate and new spots to search for mushrooms. The area is still in the same forest I usually go to but I just feel bad taking them from the same patch time and time again.

One hour of searching and nothing.

The dog is with me and he is worn out so I decide to head back to the van and return to my normal spot really quick and grab a few on the way home. Can't go home empty-handed right?

Once back at the van I realize my phone is gone. I turn the van on, nope no Bluetooth connection. I think...

Well, I used it to take a picture about half an hour ago so I know I had it in the woods, ah crap! I return to the place where I took the picture and retrace my steps, it takes about a half-hour nothing...

The dog is now dead and I really don’t want to carry my 50-pound friend back to the van so I call it quits.

Wait a minute! I have an iPad at home, I can use the locate my phone app! Hurray! I know pretty much where I was so the iPad can show me a general vicinity I can narrow my search.

Drive all the way home, fire up the iPad, yup there it is right near the river I must have lost it when I stopped to take a piss.

Put the dog away and head back out. Trudge my way through the woods and look up at the sky and see rain is coming! Faster now I get out there and after 10 minutes or so I find it laying on the side of a hill. Yes!

So, I have my phone but no mushrooms. What an adventure, but the morning is now gone and I have to get home to prepare to pick up the kids from kindergarten.

Kids and I are home now playing and I am drying mushrooms and making a new batch of Amanita ambrosia (current one is off, again that’s for another post), and I get a message from my mother-in-law.

Look what she found at work in the parking lot!

I finish the ambrosia I am making and load the kids up back into the van and fly out there, it’s a two-minute drive! I get there and they are the largest, prettiest, most amazing mushrooms I have ever seen!

Jumping out of the Van, I snap a quick picture and stand in awe for a second. I am downtown though and people are out and about and here I come to harvest these “poisonous” mushrooms!

Quickly I gathered them up and thought to myself, “these are so big, how am I going to do this?”

Turned out to be a great day!

-@balticbadger