Fall Mushroom Foraging

Last fall my husband and I headed out to a guided fall mushroom hunt with the Washtenaw County Parks & Recreation Program. We had a good time hunting for puff balls and were the only team that found the elusive Hen of the Woods.

I don't know why I had a craving to find them this fall, but the other day I decided I wanted to find my own Hen of The Woods. I packed up the car, loaded the kids and went to a local Township Park for the "hunt". We didn't hit the jackpot immediately, with Hen of the Woods, however we found TONS of puffball mushrooms all over the park. The kids had a blast walking around looking at dead tree trunks, in the open fields and along the trails - I think they found all of the mushrooms before I did. I COULD however smell the mushrooms as we headed along our way and told them to look out, and it's likely that walking ahead of me netted the most fungi, but I won't complain.

Along with finding mushrooms, I told my children never to pick any, except if Mommy or daddy were right there and said it was OK, and I told them to NEVER EVER eat any. I even said that they could die from eating mushrooms - I would tell ANYONE that. The two types of mushrooms I was hunting though are the easiest to identify and don't have poisonous look-a-likes really, so with my trusty guide-book in hand I felt confident in our harvest. Anything I wasn't certain of I took the "when in doubt throw out" route...

What was truly amazing was the next week while at my son's soccer game, my husband and daughter were roaming around, and my daughter netted a large cache of puff balls that hadn't gotten trampled - they were right in the middle of all the soccer fields!

We had a blast walking through the park looking for wildlife, falling leaves and all there is to see and do (I enjoyed tiring them out too!). I love teaching my children new and exciting things to do, and they enjoy spending the time with dear ole' mom!

Mushroom Hunting

I like to do "different" and interesting things with my family - And hey I'm not proud to admit it, if they're FREE things to do, that's even better. So when I saw a free mushroom hike offered through Washtenaw County's Parks and Rec program, I signed my husband and I up.

I didn't know what to expect, but thought at the very least we might learn something new and the biggest bonus - it was a date to get out of the house together...

It was a very good program that started with a brief discussion then a hike in the woods. We were told to gather whatever we wanted to, and that later we would come back as a group to "show-off" our findings, edible or otherwise. I of course wanted to get only edible mushrooms, so my husband and I followed (more like stalked) the expert around the woods for a few hours gathering edibles.

Mostly we found Slippery Jacks, puff balls, Boletes, and our best find - Three good sized Hen-of-the-Woods! We were the ONLY team to find the Hen-of-the-Woods though, so we shared our bounty with the rest of the group.

When we brought our harvest home you would have thought we'd hit a jack-pot. Our kids LOVED inspecting, and posing with our "find"! I cooked up a few of our fresh mushrooms with butter then added them to flatbread with a little cheese - YUMMY. Mostly though I dehydrated the 'shrooms for use later in the winter...

***NOTE - NEVER eat anything from the wild that you are unsure of, especially wild mushrooms. We went with an expert for this experience...