About a week ago I had the pleasure of doing some mushroom picking on Wildwoods Forest property. Wildwoods is a really interesting spot, it is 70 acres of land, owned by the same guy, Merv Wilkinson for about the last 70 years. What Merv preaches is sustainable logging and has done so on his property. No big machinery, no roads throughout the land, just what is needed. In fact some of the Fir trees I looked at were estimated at 400 years old, there was even fire markings on the trunks which would have dated back to First Nations doing ground burning in the area.
Well Merv is getting a bit older now and the property is managed by The Land Conservancy. Jay Rastogi is a super nice guy who works for the TLC managing Merv’s property and doing interpretive talks for eco tourists. I called Jay up and we went for a little stroll and picked some mushrooms, something I really enjoyed, not only the picking, but the eating! We picked three different kinds,
A russula parasitized, which is the big red delicious one you can see in the photos, also called a Lobster mushroom. The russula is actually being taken over by a parasite which gives it that cool coloration. And a whole bunch of Suillus lakei (lakes bolete) and Laccaria amethysteo-occidentalis (amethyst laccaria).
Jay was kind enough to let me keep the harvest so I went home and my roomate had caught some crabs off the pier so we were able to eat fresh crab and mushies all harvested that day! YUM.

WildWoods