Magic mushrooms everywhere!

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, where we celebrate an abundant harvest. For me this year, it's "fly agaric" mushrooms, Amanita muscaria (red) and formosa variant (yellow). Chomp chomp! Power up!!

I was on the way to my local farmers market on Saturday when I spotted these beauties just off the path. They looked familiar, except they were yellow instead of the red I've seen before. Instead of mess with them without being sure, I took this photo, with the intention of showing it to a mushroom foraging expert who had a stall at the market every Saturday. I also took a shot of the main part of the patch:

20 decent-sized buttons and a few smaller ones, near the base of a pine tree. I hurried on to the market, where the expert took one look at my photos and said "you want these ones!" She didn't name them, but she did mention they are "medicinal" and "valued for research purposes". Which is true, magic mushrooms are currently being studied, including here in BC Canada, for many potent medicinal properties. A lot of people credit magic mushrooms with saving their life. The foraging expert suggested I harvest them on my way home, which I decided to do (after getting my weekly fresh produce).

Sadly, someone else had come up with the same idea, and the patch had been harvested when I got back! There were a few little ones hiding under some leaves, which I put into a paper bag, and brought home.

That afternoon, my wife @MediKatie spotted this gorgeous specimen just sitting on the grass on our street! I went and picked it up, feeling very much like Mario or Luigi, while some random neighbor watched with a confused look on his face. Brought it home to admire in the yard:

Then chopped off the volva:

Look at those beautiful gills! A really nice classic fly agaric, the most iconic mushroom in the world.

Now, we had a small pile of shrooms, and decided to dry them to make them into proper medicine. This requires a dehydrator, which we didn't own... so we decided to buy one! Off to the store we went. And what do you know? Another patch of formosa variant, these ones nice and mature!

They were next to a hedge of cedars. They really like working with evergreens.

I harvested them, we picked up a dehydrator, and went home. Here are the new additions:

I removed all the volvas, and decided to toss them into my compost, in the hopes the mycelium takes. Maybe I'll get some 'volunteers' in my yard next year?

Here are a few shots of a classic toadstool:

And the whole harvest, found within 24 hours, without even trying:

This afternoon, we set up our new dehydrator, chopped the mushrooms into smaller segments, and started it up! We managed to fill all 5 drying racks:

Now go to @MediKatie's page for her post on the dehydrating process, including another 15+ photos!

The harvest has been a good one! Happy Thanksgiving!

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