FOTD #115 : golden chanterelle! (cantharellus cibarius)
the golden chanterelle (also girolle) is a mycorrhizal fungus from the family cantharellaceae. it grown in europe in association with both coniferous & deciduous trees !!
the big question : can i bite it??
absolutely - it is edible & choice. they're said to have a faint aroma & flavour of apricots, & can by used in many different ways for food.
c. cibarius description :
"the mushroom is easy to detect and recognize in nature. the body is 3–10 centimetres (1–4 inches) wide & 5–10 cm (2–4 in) tall. The colour varies from yellow to dark yellow. red spots will appear on the cap of the mushroom if it is damaged."
[images : source & source]
[fungus description : source]
153 notes
·
View notes
Last Sunday in October, a story in five parts :)
i. The guy who owns the pasture next to mine took his cows back to their winter lodgings the other day, and told me I could let my llamas eat what was left of the grass if I wanted. That was sweet of him but his pasture's fence is cow-proof, not llama-proof, so I had to wait for a sunny day, so I could sit with a book nearby and keep an eye on the llamas Pampe. Today was the day!
Pampy looked happy about this unexpected change of scenery and started grazing peacefully, meanwhile Pampe started with exploring the whole pasture, including the patch of woods at the back, hoping to find a flaw in the fence.
(Note Poldine below, desperately running after her mum so she won't be left behind if Pampe does find an opportunity to escape)
ii. I found some impressive coulemelles in this new pasture (I don't know any mushroom names in English sorry.) I cut one to take to the pharmacy and ask if they're the good kind (here with my hand for scale)
They're also known as nez de chat, cat's nose mushrooms, in some regions...
I found some girolles nearby last year, but not this time. The llamas seemed to be on their best behaviour so I thought after lunch I'd go look for mushrooms farther away in the woods, down by the torrent, instead of watching them all day.
Poldine, watch your mother.
I asked Merricat if she was volunteering her services as a llama-sitter (it looked like it)
—but she suspected I was going home where the fire is, so she followed me. (I don't make a fire on sunny afternoons, though... she had to nap in my cardigan instead. Not as good, but a tolerated second-best option.)
iii. I took Pan with me after lunch so he wouldn't encourage Pampe in mischief, and he was uncharacteristically audacious in his frolicking! He doesn't like water and he's usually quite prudent when we're near the torrent, even scolding me if I climb on mossy rocks, but today he was jumping from one slippery rock to the other very boldly.
As I was taking this nice waterfall photo, I heard a very dramatic high-pitched squeal followed by a dramatic splashing sound, and when I turned around Pandolf was dragging himself out of the torrent, looking, as we say in french, honteux et confus.
I'm sorry that his bout of audacious frolicking had to end this way :( Back to frolicking gingerly for at least a couple of years... (His fur is magical though, he looks like a drowned rat at first but then shakes himself twice and is immediately back to a normal volume of floof. So his dignity doesn't suffer for long, at least.)
iv. I found no mushrooms but something even better!
I love chestnuts so much, I've been hoping to find chestnut trees for years but was starting to think they just don't grow at this altitude... But I suck at identifying trees so it's very possible I walked past them dozens of times and never recognised them when it wasn't chestnut season.
You really have to earn every chestnut, even with the crushing-under-your-boot method to squeeze them out you still have to extricate them from their burr going ow ow ow the whole time. The worst thing is when you kill your fingers opening a reticent burr and it resentfully spits out a bunch of sad deflated worthless chestnuts.
Still, I ended up going home with chestnuts in every single one of my pockets. When we got out of the woods and back on the road Pandolf and I ran into a woman we don't know (so, not a close neighbour) and we started talking about foraging and I wondered if I should tell her about the nearby chestnut spot. But those things are private. No one told me about the chestnut spot even after I made increasingly heavy casual hints about how much I love chestnuts. After a while though I started suspecting this lady knew about the spot and was on her way there. Or on her way back, through a different path. She looked shifty. So did I. It's very possible that we were both standing there in the middle of the road with our coat pockets crammed with chestnuts, making pointedly non-chestnut-related small talk.
v. I went home and started making chestnut-pumpkin soup while dodging constant coordinated chicken attacks. At first they act like they're napping on a conveniently-nearby chair, or looking the other way, and as soon as you stop distrusting their intentions, they pounce, often from two different directions.
Side plot: Pandolf spent this whole time desperately trying to catch a cat, to restore his self-confidence after falling in the torrent.
Morille went from strolling casually on top of the fence to lounging casually in the hazel tree above my head, making it look like she hadn't even noticed she was being chased, which was very frustrating for Pandolf. Nothing wounds a dog like going unnoticed.
I told Morille it would make him happy if she let him catch her, and she was like eh, fine, and elegantly jumped from the hazel tree to the top of the stone wall.
Pandolf immediately followed, poked her a bit brutally with his big nose, and then he didn't know what else to do with her once he caught her so he just wagged his tail like "Well played, cat!! It was nice chasing you" and left.
v. bis (or ter) I want to reassure Pirlouit fans (who might have noticed that he wasn't allowed to graze in the neighbour's pasture with the llamas) that he knows he's entitled to fair compensation as a donkey, and he stood behind the fence the whole time I was preparing my soup, patiently waiting for his pumpkin benefits. Which he did get.
I found some leftover chestnuts in my trouser pocket tonight, that I'd forgotten about, so I'm having stove-roasted chestnuts for dessert after the chestnut soup! Chestnuts were 90% of my dinner and were also the reason Pandolf got dinner. I ran out of dog kibble and I was thinking of giving him a hard-boiled egg and some rice tonight, and go buy kibble tomorrow, but on our way back this afternoon we stopped by our closest neighbour's house and I humbly offered a handful of chestnuts in exchange for one serving of kibble. The neighbour's dog didn't look enchanted with our offer but his human agreed. I usually trade with my chicken's eggs but this woman has hens so I'm glad chestnuts are also accepted as valid currency.
2K notes
·
View notes
❤️🎶
Ici l'automne chasse un été de plus
La 4L est morte on a repeint la rue
Élise a deux dents, Petit Jean est grand et fort
J'apprends la guitare, j'en suis à trois accords
J'ai trouvé des girolles au marché ce matin
J'aimerais vivre à Rome oh j'aimerais bien
J'ai planté des tulipes elles tardent à éclore
C'est tout je crois, ah oui, je t'aime encore
Mais où es-tu?
Aussi loin sans même une adresse
Et que deviens-tu?
L'espoir est ma seule caresse
J'ai coupé mes cheveux, enfin dirais-tu
Oh ça m'a fait bizarre mais j'ai survécu
On m'invite, on me désire et je danse et je sors
Et quand je danse, je t'aime encore
Mais où es-tu?
Aussi loin sans même une adresse
Et que deviens-tu?
L'attente est ma seule caresse
Et je t'aime encore
Comme dans les chansons banales
Ça me dévore
Et tout le reste m'est égal
De plus en plus fort
À chaque souffle, à chaque pas
Et je t'aime encore
Et toi tu ne m'entends pas
Source : Musixmatch
Compositeurs : Jean-jacques Goldman / Eric Benzi / J Kapler
4 notes
·
View notes