Mushroom Foray!

When Diane said that we would be doing a Mushroom Foray to be honest, I wasn’t even sure what that meant. I love to eat mushrooms but, for the most part, I hadn’t given them a whole lot of consideration outside of the supermarket or on my dinner plate. Well, this is almost completely true. When I was about 5 a friend and I apparently got hungry while playing in the yard at the babysitter’s house and ate the mushrooms in the grass. Until doing this foray I never understood why she was so upset and worried about us. I don’t remember much about the whole experience but I do know that were both pretty sick and had our stomachs pumped. Had they been poisonous mushrooms, it sounds like I’m lucky to be around. Anyway, back to the foray. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I knew I was excited about it. I grew up in the city but almost my whole extended family lives on farms. Every year growing up my uncle took my brother and I on adventures in the woods looking for wild flowers to move to his garden. I must say that there were all sorts of flowers and things to be discovered in those woods but I never remember any mushrooms! I find it interesting to think about all of the things that people miss on their daily walks because their attention is directed at other things. After doing this mushroom foray with the class there is no doubt in my mind that there would have been all sorts of mushrooms in that forest, but I was so focused on flowers I don’t remember ever seeing any. The foray with the class brought me back to these days. I felt like a giddy kid again running around in the forest looking for treasures. It amazed me how many different types of mushrooms there are. I had no idea that that many existed or that they could be found right here in Guelph. Some of the noteworthy finds that Laura and I collected were the stinkhorn ball and the chewing gum pink slime. I’m glad that I was able to have this experience that I otherwise might never have had. I think I’m hooked, I’ve noticed mushrooms everywhere I go ever since.