Chasing those Wild Mushrooms!

 Well, i think it is official that we are completely addicted to mushroom hunting. Last year was the was of the wettest seasons on record for our area, and we had an amazing variety of mushrooms come up on our land.   Ever since last years mushroom season ended, i've been curious about what we would find this year...especially if the conditions are not the same.

Mushroom season starts off early with the morels. i usually start looking around the second week of April. This year i was a bit disappointed to check all my regular spots and not find a thing.  i started checking probably at the end of March and went out every couple of days, but my usual spots appeared to have dried up.  Refusing to give up i continued to look and the first week of May, i stumbled upon a brand new patch that was covered in huge yellow morels! 

We had a good amount of rain in the spring, So as we transitioned into summer Chanterelle season was in full swing.  All year Kenan has been telling me he didn't have time to chase mushroom  with me this year. He was way too busy, he wasn't going to do it again. i was welcome to, but he was staying home.

Then the chanterelles started popping...

Can we say addicted?? 

i'm not sure how many chanterelles we picked this year, but it was probably just as many as least year.  We went out numerous times and completely filled this basket and filled my freezer.

 While kayaking one afternoon, i spotted this Chicken of the Woods on a log near the edge of the river. i almost tipped my kayaking trying to get to it!  i had to climbed onto a floating log in order to reach it, but there was no way i was going to leave it behind!

We started finding the Chanterelles the first week of July this year, and by August we were still finding a ton. While collecting chanterelles we are always on the look out for a few other choice mushrooms.  Now that we knew the Chickens were sprouting, we were out looking almost every day.   i love finding the Black Trumpets, which are often found near chanterelles but are much harder to spot! 

We have a couple logs on our property where we found Chicken of the Woods last year, so i like to go out and check them periodically. Chicken of the woods is supposed to come back every year, although i think sometimes it skips a year depending on conditions. 

While checking on a log that produced really well last year, i happened upon this one!  i was able to fill my basket with super fresh chicken! 

Our plugged shiitake logs also did incredibly well in July and we filled our freezer with those as well.

While checking on a Chicken log, i found my first Cauliflower mushroom.  At the time it was still really small, so i left it for a few days.  When i went back to find it, i found a second one!  It's always exciting to find a new edible mushroom on our land, especially ones that are super easy to identify like the Cauliflower.  This shows the selection on mushroom we were foraging and harvesting at the beginning of August. Chicken of the woods, Smooth chanterelle, Black Trumpets, Shiitake, Cauliflower, Cinnabar chanterelles and Oysters. 

This is one of the two chicken logs we'd found last year and were hoping would sprout again. i  always forget where it is and have a hard time finding it when i'm out looking.  i was out picking chanterelles with my boy, when he said 'i see a log over there covered in chanterelles.'   To which i replied, 'Chanterelles don't grow on wood. They are probably Jack o'lanterns, or maybe Chicken....is it CHICKEN??'   So we abandoned our chanterelle patch to check out the log covered in orange fungus.  It was my boy's first time finding chicken of the woods and it was massive!!  This photo only shows one end of the log. The log curves around a large tree and it was impossible to fit it all a photo because of the angle. There is just as much if not more on the other end of the log. 

We loaded up our basket until we couldn't find any more in it and came home. Kenan went back the next day to pick the rest. It was the freshest chicken of the weeds we've ever had.  We spent a week eating a variety of chicken of the woods dishes and freezing as much as possible.  After this, i don't think i'll ever have trouble finding that log again!  After this harvest it got really dry. All the chanterelles dried up, and the woods were pretty much empty when it came to any kind of fungi growth.

Almost a month with no rain and temps close to 90, it is so incredibly dry here.  The garden is dying back, even the weeds are dry and crunchy...so imagine my surprise when Kenan tell me the log behind the house that i've been watching for 2 years has finally fruited!!  i first found this log two years ago but the chicken was already too old to pick so i have been watching it ever since. Last year, when we had an amazing mushroom year,  it never did a thing. This year when it's crazy dry and drought like conditions it fruits! i really don't understand it.

We have another log we are watching, but so far it's showed no sign of fruiting. Last year it had already produced by this time of the year, so it may also be an every other year log.  Last year we were also still picking chanterelles right now, so i'm hoping if we can get a good soaking rain we'll start to see more mushrooms popping.  

Despite the last month of drought, we've had a pretty good mushroom season. We now have 4 different logs on our property that  we know produce chickens, and two trees that grow cauliflowers, and two that grow Lion's mane.    It's really neat to not only find new edible mushrooms each year, but to constantly be learning about them and learning what trees to look for and what environments best suits each variety.   

Now i need to add the disclaimer, that you should never eat a mushroom that you can not identify 100% by yourself.  If you are wanting to send me a picture of a mushroom you found to ask if it's edible, then you shouldn't be eating it.  

If you are interested in learning about the mushrooms on your land there are a lot of good resources available online. 

A few of our favorite books are Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora.

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms

Peterson Field Guide to Mushrooms

You can also check out Learn your Land on facebook and youtube.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcbf8wnyVJl631LAmAbo7nw 

Honey Extracting! Life is sweet, we have honey!

This is our second year in bee keeping, and we finally got to pull honey which we've been anticipating since we began.  We decided not to pull any honey the first year, instead allow the bees to focus on creating really strong hives. We fed sugar to help them pull frames and fill them with brood.  The honey they made last year was then fed back to them in the winter.  It seemed to be a good plan, as all of our hives survived the winter, and we went into our second year with strong colonies.

We started with 4 full size hives the first year and over wintered with 8.   The bees grew exponentially this spring and we are entering the fall with 17 hives.  

This is a beautiful frame of fully capped and cured honey.  It's important to make sure your honey is properly cured or it could ferment.  On our first pull we took all of the capped honey, but left behind anything that was not yet fully capped.  We stored the capped honey in our basement with a dehumidifier to help the curing process until we were able to extract. We rented an extractor from the bee club, and so we had to wait until the extractor was available to extract the honey.

To extract the honey, we used a heated knife to remove the cappings.  We did this over a clean tub, so we could collect all the wax cappings and any honey that dripped.  Extracting honey is sticky messy business. 

Once the cappings were removed, the frames were placed inside the extractor. 

The extractor could hold 4 frames at a time. You put the frames in and spin the extractor to remove the honey.   Turn frames around and do it again.

Spinning out the frames. Once all the honey is extracted from the frames, we open the spigot and pour the honey through a mesh filter to remove any large bits of wax and store it in food grade buckets.  Our honey is considered unfiltered, as we do not run it through the fine filters to filter out every little thing.  We believe leaving some tiny bits of pollen and wax is beneficial. 

Beautiful golden honey! Our honey is considered wildflower honey, as we don't plant one specific crop for the bees. Guess from what was in season when the bees were bringing in the nectar, i would say this contains primarily tulip poplar, locust, redbuds and clover.

This was just the first round. A few weeks after extracting this honey, we purchased our own extractor and finished extracting the frames that were left.  There was a waiting list for the extractor, and i had a local friend with one available for sale so we went ahead and purchased it so that we were not having to constantly wait on the clubs.   We extracted almost this same amount, making our total close to 200 lbs of gorgeous raw wildflower honey!  Not bad for our first honey harvest!!

We sold the first batch pretty quickly online, but have left the second batch to sell locally at the market and for gifting.  i will also be listing it on our website very soon! So watch for that! 

My labels are a bit boring, but i wanted something simple and was having a tough time fitting all the words on the label. We printed them at home, so i can change them up any time i feel like it.  i may eventually redo them with our business name on the front, it's currently on the back with our contact info and all the required labeling.

It's been a learning process for sure, and a ton of work...but that honey sure does taste sweet at the end of the day making it worth it.

The Ayurveda Collection by Rituals- Product review

i had a fun mail day this week. :D i got to try out #theritualsofayurveda by Rituals Cosmetics.  Rituals is a unique luxury lifestyle brand focused on ancient traditions for body and home. As the leading bath and body brand in Europe, they encourage ‘slow down’ moments for the mind, body, & soul.

Rituals aims to turn everyday routines into cherishable moments, helping their customers to “find happiness in the smallest of things” with the use of their products. Inspired by ancient Eastern traditions, each product uses specific fragrance combinations to help stimulate the senses and encourages you to immerse yourself in some “me time”.

This wonderful gift pack is the perfect present for a friend or family member or for treating yourself! Contains a shower foam, body scrub and body cream. Achieve inner harmony with these soothing and aromatic products based on Indian Rose and Sweet Almond Oil. 

The body cream is really smooth and nourishing, it's made with Indian Rose and Himalaya honey.  It smells amazing and absorbs quickly without leaving a greasy feeling.  My daughter has already tried to claim it all, but i'm not sharing. hee hee. 

The salt scrub leaves your skin feeling so soft. Enriched with the delightful aroma of Indian Rose and the soothing effects of Sweet Almond Oil According to traditional Ayurvedic science, scrubbing is a highly effective way of purifying your body and of stimulating the flow of energy. This process is enhanced when taking a warm bath.

The foaming gel is silky smooth, thick and lathers really nicely. The scent is light, but lingers and is not overpowering at all. i really enjoyed these!

 They have many different collections available and i'm excited to explore some of the other scent combinations. Rituals is never tested on animals. 

You can purchase this small gift set here- https://amzn.to/2Lo9CUo 

You can learn more about the Ayurveda collections here- https://www.rituals.com/en-us/home 

Connect with Rituals on social media

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/RitualsUSA/

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/ritualsusa/

*i received these Rituals products for free from Tryazon in exchange for my honest review.  My opinions are my own. 

#ritualsusa #shareyourslowdown #gotitfree #referral #nottestedonanmials #pamperyourself #bathtime #slowdown #tryazon

Where did the summer go?!

 i can't believe how behind i am on updating this blog. Our summer completely flew by.   i'm not even sure we actually had a summer, i had to go back through all my photos to find out what we even did over the summer because i have almost no memory of doing anything.  The kids got out of school at the end of May, we had a week or two then my daughter was off to 4-H camp, July was all about Band camps and band practice and Floydfest, and they were right back to school by the second week of August.  i'm pretty sure that's the shortest summer vacation we've ever had.

So besides the constant running to town (mom taxi & artisan market) my summer was filled with planting and picking and preserving my garden harvest.

Hikes in the woods to forage for mushrooms.

A couple trips kayaking.

Fridays at the Artisan Market.

We got a new bunny!  His name is Finn. 

 i hosted two workshops at Floydfest and really had an amazing time! Can't wait to do it again next year!

We grew our apiary, we currently have 17 colonies! 

We pulled and bottled almost 200lbs of honey!

Grew an abundance of tomatoes, peaches and shiitakes!!

AND got a new puppy!!  Jasper is a mix between German Shepard and Australian Shepard. He was born on the 4th of July and he's keeping me very busy trying to get this potty training thing down. 

Puppies are exhausting.

So that's a super quick wrap up of our summer.  Somewhere between 4-h camp and band camp we had a visit from my sister, a pool party,  my boys took a trip to MI, we hiked buffalo mountain, canned lots of produce and did lots of thrift store shopping.

i'm still waiting for life to slow down a bit, and then i'll post more about some of the fun we had and mushrooms we've found. i just wanted to check in after disappearing for 3 months. 

First Artisan Market of the Season! We are on Instagram!

Floyd Artisan Market is back for the season. Our first market was Friday,  May-24 and it runs until the end of Oct.  It was really nice being back, but i also forgot how much work it is to set up and how boring it is when it's slow.  We shared the Friday with the Chantilly Farms Bluegrass festival and Floyd County High School Graduation and so the Market was really slow to say the least. 

This is a photo of my display from last year.

 When i went to set up this year, i switch the table covers without realizing it and then couldn't figure out why the table looked so busy. i like the way the table cloth covers the table better, but the necklaces that are laying directly on the table (not the jewelry displays) blend in with the patterns and are difficult to see. i really need to find a better way to display my jewelry.

It was nice to see familiar faces again and we had a few new vendors at Market this year.  Pam of Moore Designs is a past vendor that took last year off, but is back this year with beautiful sterling silver jewelry and batik clothing. Cottontail farm was set up with their fiber crafts and handspun yarns. Rich Ursomarso had his the beautiful birch bark baskets for sale and he also played us a bit of music while we waited for the band to start. 

This year i volunteered to take over the Artisan Market social media promoting. i've been posting to facebook and decided to create an Instagram page.  i'll be posting featured artists and live posting from the market every friday! 

For more information about the Artisan market you can visit the website https://floydartisanmarket.wordpress.com/

Check out the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/floydartisanmarket/

Follow on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/floydartisanmarket/

Market season had a very disappointing and slow start, but i'm hoping that it will pick up and that the social promotion with help!  If you are ever in Floyd, VA be sure and stop by the Friday night Artisan Market and say hello!