How'd it go today?

Thanks lxsdkllr. I looked a so many machines, from 40hp 3000lbs machines all the way down to this little guy at 1500lbs and 21 hp. I can tow it with a f150, it saves my back and it keeps a pristine lawn as long as you keep it in 4wd. Next step up would be an articulated loader like Mick but I it will take a few more jobs before I can afford it along with a beefy 2 axle trailer.
@cory, there will be some fig plants available next summer. sharing is caring!
 
Good stuff!!

Btw, my experience with kubota is they are bulletproof :drink:
 
Shoot, I was hoping global warming was kicking in for CT figs. We're 6 on the edge of 5. Are your figs in the ground or pots?
 
Just wear caulk boots and say, you're aerating the lawn.

I had to sit down and rejoice in the fact that I'm not Rico, today.

Got hit on the top of my helmet by a 6 foot 1½" thick dead branch that somehow got knocked out of e beech behind the one I was felling..
Didn't knock me out, but I had to sit down for a bit.
Now my teeth feel funny from having been slammed together.
Earmuffs and visor was knocked off the helmet,but no damage to me.

Been there. It's amazing how much a small falling limb can do when it spears right into the helmet. I had a small fir limb, (could easily be picked up with three fingers) fall 25' feet and hit the back of the hardhat as I was bending (and looking) down. It hit right where the skull and the brain stem meet. Even with the hard hat taking the full impact, I was dazed, with foggy vision and watering eyes for a good minute or two. Without the helmet, it probably would have paralyzed or killed, or done some serious brain damage.
 
Pots. Some winters have been cold enough to be careful. Pots require frequent watering while in ground plants are more forgiving. Also potted fig trees outgrow the pots quicker than I expected and become a pain to move. Nothing beats a fresh ripe fig.
 
Routine day. Nothing exciting, but it was kinda hot; 80°. Left the house angry this morning cause it was warm and wet out. Fall's in sight, but not here, and I just want summer gone at this point. At every point really, but when fall gets close, it feels like it's trolling me.

My locust shrooms are sprouting pretty well. Kinda curious if they're edible. just started looking online, but I wouldn't feel good about eating them unless someone I trusted saw them in person, and said they were absolutely good.

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I'm pretty sure that's laetiporus, aka chicken of the woods. Tastes amazingly like chicken. You can slice them up and bread and fry. Gotta get them quickly though as they get woody fast. Maybe too late on this one. If so, just trim the outer edges off and throw out the rest
 
The internet tells me there aren't really any lookalikes for the chicken of the woods. Tomorrow will be the big day. I'll fry up a small piece in some olive oil, and see what it tastes like. If it's good, and I don't fall over dead, I'll cook up some more, and maybe have it with quinoa.

edit:
Assuming everything goes per plan, that'll give me a good reason to leave a big stub when I remove the locust. I was kinda undecided. I was thinking I could lash the oak to it to straighten it up a bit, but that seemed a little dumb. If I can harvest shrooms for awhile, it'll be a good reason to keep some of it around.
 
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Jack-0-lantern looks similar to chicken o the woods but is poisonous ... most likely you may get a bad case o’ the runs if you ingest
 
Yea, I saw that, but it only has color in common. Looks like a cluster of caps, and the internet says it has gills. Mine definitely don't have gills.

I'm gonna keep an eye on the rest of the tree. It grows shrooms on other parts, but I never noticed they were yellow. If they are, I can save those log parts, and maybe they'll continue to grow shrooms for a few years. All that's assuming I like the way they taste, and they don't make me sick of course.
 
I agree...I was taught about Amanita Verna (Destroying Angel) in high school...that got my attention so I think folks even eating morels are nuts. Be careful for sure.

The way mushrooms kill people is insidious: for A. Virosa....visually the same as A. Verna...."Destroying Angels contain a complex group of poisonous substances called amatoxins. Contained not only in certain amanitas but also in some fungi from the genera Galerina, Lepiota and Conocybe, amatoxins initially cause gastrointestinal disorders with symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea and stomach pains occurring within five to twelve hours. Cruelly, the symptoms usually fade away for several hours or even a day or two, tricking the victim into thinking that they are recovering. When in due course the symptoms return with a vengeance, it may well be too late: kidney and liver damage is already underway. Without treatment, coma and eventual death are almost inevitable.

Often, people hospitalised late into a poisoning episode can be saved only by major surgery and a liver transplant, and even then recovery is a precarious, painful and protracted process."

Good info on Amanita shrooms here: Amanita virosa, Destroying Angel mushroom - https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/amanita-virosa.php

After reading the above site, any fungi has my total "I am not messing with that" attention.
 
Got my little pan out...

IMG_20201002_171248.jpg

Doesn't smell much like chicken. Smells like mushroom :^D ~7 minutes to go...

edit:
Fewer minutes than I thought. I tthink I got it a little overdone. Just a pinch of Celtic salt...

IMG_20201002_171809.jpg

edit2:
Kinda tastes like overcooked chicken. Encouraging start. That means I probably got the right thing :^D I'll wait a bit to see how things go, and maybe cook up some more.
 
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You should check in here periodically....do we need your address and phone # for when you drop off the grid? Tell the NOK to go check on you????
 
I think it's psychological. Stuck my finger down my throat, puked up a some biltong I ate earlier, and maybe shroom? I feel better already, which wouldn't make sense if it were medical.

What I was going to write earlier, is the shrooms can pick up attributes of the wood they grow on, and I just read black locust is toxic to eat, so reagrdless of the shroom, it might not be a good idea. Oak shrooms are a better bet.
 
I ate some berkley's polypores this year, edible but not great tasting. Also just harvested and dried a bunch of turkey tails that are growing on stumps. Will use them for medicinal teas. last time I ate Laetiporus I felt a little sick, as I did with the recent berkleys which was used in omelets.
And I have made soup with wild honey mushrooms (armillaria), which also made me feel a little queezy. That's the theory behind why mushrooms are good for the immune system, because they kick it into gear, make it work a little.

Here's the thing though... I don't eat anything without a positive ID, either something I know myself or I send pics to friends who are true experts on local shrooms. and I don't eat anything that doesn't grow on wood. The only poisonous shrooms around here that grow on wood (they actually just grow at the base of trees) are jack o lanterns and I can readily ID them, because they pop every year about this time in my backyard.

I just borrowed a food dehydrator and will be harvesting anything easy and safe this fall. Screenshot_20200928-185240_Gallery.jpg 20200916_093128.jpg 20200719_190112.jpg
 
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I think it's psychological. Stuck my finger down my throat, puked up a some biltong I ate earlier, and maybe shroom? I feel better already, which wouldn't make sense if it were medical.

What I was going to write earlier, is the shrooms can pick up attributes of the wood they grow on, and I just read black locust is toxic to eat, so reagrdless of the shroom, it might not be a good idea. Oak shrooms are a better bet.

Sounds like fake news to me... the species it grows on may effect taste and timing, but not toxicity, at least I never heard that. I used to get this huge chicken shroom from a nearby ash right near the street, until they cut it down last year.
 
Dunno. My reference is "Some guy on the internet with a blog". It was also backed up by "Some other guy on the internet with a blog", who said you shouldn't eat them from yew trees(one of the shroom's preferred trees) due to toxicity, likewise for eucalyptus. What was said, is they're parasitic, and take up the constituents of the wood and store them, which makes sense based on what I know from other things. I /almost/ care enough to send a sample off and have it analyzed, but that would be a decent chunk of $ I think.

As to my "reaction", my best guess is I really did feel something, and it started an anxiety feedback loop that amplified it. The above mentioned blogs said some people are sensitive to them, and I'm thinking I am. It felt like the beginning stage of a psychedelic experience. Light detachment, and a certain floatiness.

Kind of a shame. I really liked the way the piece I ate tasted. Somewhat like an overcooked chicken tender. It would have been something else to look forward to that makes fall even more amazing than it is, which is an exceptionally high bar. I may give it another shot if I find some growing on oak(another species preferred by the shroom), or some other neutral tree.
 
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