My Bedroom

I've been working slowly on decorating the house (not doing so well). There quick moments of poster hanging and plans to frame some pictures, but I haven't really done much of anything. I've concentrated more on my bedroom and I'm pretty happy with how things look - it really does feel like my space. So, since I haven't started any projects yet (but boy, I do have some ideas!) I thought it would be good practice to do something simple like detailed shots from my bedroom and give a little update about how things are going.

Chamomile tea - a necessary staple for sleeping and anxiety. Tea is magic.

Shells and knick knacks - I collect shells and rocks. I'm not sure where the army man came from...

Grow kit! I'm really excited to eat these oyster mushrooms once they're big enough. Not so much now, but in Fall and Winter I enjoy the musty smell of mushrooms drying around my room.

Coffee. Every day.

Found this awesome hand in Portland! I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I  love how weird it is.

Traded my friend a bottle of Pimm's for this type writer. Thanks, friend! I've been typing songs, letters, poetry, stories, and have tried to write at least one positive line a day about something I've witnessed or enjoyed. This has been healing my soul big time.

This is where I hide the bourbon and scotch. I've been making a point of trying different kinds of whiskeys to expand my whiskey knowledge and also to share good things with friends.

Batman! He is almost 1 year old. He hates all humans, but I think he likes me a little bit more than everyone else.

I tried to grow crystals in little jars and they came out pretty awful. They look kind of like sea anemone alien spawn. I will probably dump the crystals and fill them up with rocks, sand, shells, or whatever is my wont. Stupid crystals.

There we go. After the shaky start of this year, it is really important to me that my bedroom and house feel like home. More importantly, the town I live in is becoming more and more my home everyday. I am meeting new people, making some really awesome new friends, learning new things, feeling like I belong here and generally just being happy.

2013

The beginning of this year has been... it's honestly hard to find a word. A little like I've lost part of myself and I'm trying to find it again. I have hope for better things to come and I know that I am at a good enough place in my life right now that I will make it through all that it is I am currently enduring. A big change is coming my way, I can feel it.

Fungus Identification #05

Sick of fungi yet? Too bad, here is some more! Went on a short forage with Nick yesterday and this time really climbed around in the brush, bushes, and trees. Hopefully no poison oak shows up on our bodies. So far, so good!

We found two ridiculously cute mushrooms and both are smaller than my thumb!

Russula emetica - this one even has a tinier mushroom next to it!

Boletus zelleri - aka Zeller's Bolete. Strikingly beautiful little shroom.

We also found tons of these polypores devouring a fallen conifer. 

Fomitopsis pinicola - aka red-belted conk. I'm still looking for an artists conk to doodle on! See what I mean here.

These candy caps were the best find of the day! They're weren't very many, but there were enough for me to take home and dry. They smell like an earthy maple syrup when dried and they're quite tasty.

Lactarius rubidus - aka Candy Caps!

Fungus Identification #04

More fungi! This time from mid December... I give the latin name first, then the common name in quotations. I'm not 100% about everything I identify. It's hard work, but very satisfying once the identification mystery is solved.

Armillariella mellea - Honey mushrooms! A very tiny family.

Not 100% identified. I have a couple ideas though... It could be the "boring brown bolete" or the "poor mans slippery jack". Either way, both names do not give too much hope to this little mushroom. 

You can really see the tubes in this cross section (same shroom from above). Mushrooms are fascinating.

Lycoperdon foetidum - "Dark puffball". This was is very fresh; no spores yet!

Vascellum pratenise - "Field puffball". Notice the green in the middle; those are spores!

This is generally what my set up looks like when I'm working on identification. The mushroom caps are covered with a class and set on white paper so I can get a spore print. The color of the spores help me to identify what type of fungi I've found. The class help by keep the caps undisturbed, which can create vivid spore prints like the image below.

As always, more mushrooms to follow! I also have some film to share that involve love and bicycles. Hopefully I can get those edited and up next week.

Fungus Identification #03

I have quite a few identifications to put up here... this is actually from a forage in early December! I am far behind my record keeping.

Lactarius deliciosus - the delicious (actually, it's not) milky cap

Mystery Lactarius. Can't identify them all yet...

Lactarius vinaceorufescens - yellow staining milky cap

Suillus tomentosus - blue staining bolete. This image does not due the blue staining justice. All you have to do is touch underneath the cap and the pores would stain. Same for cutting the stem and cap as you can see in the image below.

Suillus pseudobrevipes? - possibly a veiled short-stemmed bolete. I'm not 100% sure on the identification. Very slimy and disgusting boletes. I did not enjoy touching these or identifying them. Very gross and snot like.

Suillus pungens? - another slimy cap but with beautiful pores. Smelled pungent like a pungent slippery jack, but I'm not 100% on this identification. The cap was a very lovely orange in the middle and forest green on the edges.

Making spore prints! I only got spores for the bottom right bolete that were a olive green. The rest were white or slime.

I spent a good amount of time on identifying these six. It was a lot of work and I had to start over multiple times for the questionable identifications. I'm getting better at this, but certainly not faster. Till next time...