27th Street

June 7, 2012

The Duck

The other morning, Tuffy P came in from her walk with the dogs, but instead of sitting down to her usual cereal and coffee, she simply said, “I’ve got to go pick up a duck…back in a few minutes.” And off she went. I looked at the dogs and the dogs looked at me and we all looked at the front door as it closed behind her.

Several minutes later, Tuffy came back inside. “The duck is in your car. It’s too heavy for me to move.”

On the walk with the dogs, Tuffy happened to talk to another woman walking her dog and this woman said, we need to cross the street, there’s a duck nesting over there. It’s sitting on eggs and we shouldn’t disturb it. Tuffy looked over and there sitting by the curb, out for any scavangers or the garbage guys to haul away, was a large cement bird. She decided right away that we needed to give it a good home. When I looked in the car I decided it was way to big to be a duck, but then again, it was not nearly graceful enough to be a swan. Clearly it’s a snow goose.

I hauled it into the backyard. “It’s a snow goose, Tuffy P, it’s way too big to be a duck.” “No, it’s a duck.” So we’ve decided to call it a duck. You can call it a snow goose if you like or anything else for that matter, but to us, it’s just The Duck.

There it is, sitting out in the back yard. Don’t go too close – it’s sitting on eggs.

June 6, 2012

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Pie

photo by Tuffy P, excessive cropping by me

June 5, 2012

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What’s a garden without a dog to lounge in it….

…especially if that dog is a big lazy Newf like our Miss Ellie Mae.

June 5, 2012

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Move over Spring

This is a great time of year for our gardens, a time when summer comes along and says, hey you, spring, scram – I’m comin’ in. Let me introduce you to our peonies….

June 5, 2012

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Dryad’s Saddle

After I posted about oyster mushrooms the other day, someone asked me if there were any other mushrooms I might mistake for oyster mushrooms. In Southern Ontario this time of year, there isn’t much around that might cause confusion (although I say that, I also say that you should never consume any mushroom from the forest unless you can identify it with 100% certainty – always be sure!)

Another mushroom you may see growing from trees in the woods this time of year is the Dryad’s Saddle or Polyporus squamosus.

I usually see these low down on tree trunks. They are much firmer than oysters and have the characteristic brown on them. They also smell kind of like watermelon rind. I understand these are tough but edible, but that said, I know one naturalist who swears he ate some once and they made him sick. I’ve never tried eating these and don’t intend to try them.

June 4, 2012

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A Prediction I Like

The Weather Network has predicted normal summer temperatures this year, but in the Toronto area, higher than normal precipitation. This is good news for the amateur mycologists in the crowd. Last season started off well enough with plenty of morels and plenty of oysters but then a very dry July made it a poor year for chanterelles. Things picked up some later in August and into September. I found my share of hedgehogs, some good puffballs and some milk caps and as usual, plenty of lobster mushrooms.

I missed those chanterelles last year though. I’d love to see a warm wet July this year to get the chanterelles and the summer boletes off to a good start. Just sayin’.

June 3, 2012

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Pleurotus populinus

Pleurotus populinus, an oyster mushroom sometimes known as the aspen oyster, is a delicious mushroom that appears in Southern Ontario in late May or early June. All the rain we’ve had in the last couple days was likely a trigger for the appearance of these mushrooms so the dogs and I piled into the station wagon this morning and headed for the Enchanted Mushroom Forest.

These mushrooms are very striking in the forest and are easy to spot growing off the sides of dead poplar trees.

They are creamy-white to yellowish-white and typically the fresher they are the whiter they are. When nice and fresh, these oysters have a lovely delicate odour, not dissimilar to anise.

Sometimes you’ll find them on fallen trees but other times they grow high in the trees, out of reach. I confess I’ve used long dead saplings found on the forest floor to knock choice oysters from high perches.

Oyster mushrooms tend to be quite clean, sitting up in trees and all, but watch for tiny black beetles that sometimes take up residence in their short stems and hide between the gills. I carefully inspect each mushroom when I get home.

Can you spot the oysters in this forest shot? They go quite high up the tree. When I’m looking for them, I typically walk the trails and look for bits of white in the forest.

Oysters are mild mushrooms with a delicate texture. They’re very nice in stir fries, or in omelets, or try them fried up in butter served up on toast. They dry up well too, which is a good thing because oyster mushrooms are a feast or famine kind of mushroom. When you find them, you usually find plenty. I’m drying a batch in an inexpensive hardware store dehyrdator now.