Since I began studying fungi in 2019 I have been drawn towards the Ascomycetes. The spores packaged neatly in its asci and the paraphyses nesting around providing color and protection, just makes sense in my brain. I like looking at those small microscopic worlds fanning out in squash mounted slides so I can take spore measurements. I also have a real knack for finding the little black cups or micro colonies of tiny Ascomycetes fruiting on rotting logs.

Foray Log- Northern Oregon Coast, January 27, 2022

Diana and I decided to take a day together and look for ectomycorrhizal connections and winter fungi growing along the coast. We were looking for signs of the hyphae that would have capped the root ends of trees and made their way into the wood wide web. On our first stop we spent a lot of time discussing what habitat we were standing in and how to identify trees. We were standing in a Cedar, Western Hemlock and Spruce forest, with old growth stumps as big as yurts. Beside all of the slash piles we found the Western Hemlocks used old fallen and decaying logs as their nursery, while the Cedar did not.

Cedar is one of those trees that does not foster an ectomycorrhizal connection with fungi. So as we looked at the fungi that was present in this forest we began to see the connections in a whole new light. The spongy forest floor was

I took a last minute trip to the coast with my oldest teenager to spend the day with him before he had archery class. We walked around my favorite coastal forest and found Hydnellum peckii and the little mycoheterotroph, Hemotomes congestum. Our forest exploration led us to the sweetest little fairy forest someone had built out of forest debris next to a cluster of H. congestum. We explored their little village and spent all the time we had building on to the village.

In the fall of 2020, Oregon, and especially the Willamette Valley experienced some of the worst wildfires in recorded history. We watched as the skies downwind of the million+ acre fires turned red, and darkened the sun even at noon. Our air quality was so bad, that it was hazardous to go outside for over 10 days. As our forests burned, communities lost their homes, livelihoods and lives because of lack of warning and scary conditions.

Foray Log- Big Meadow Horse Camp & Parish Lake, June 16, 2021

Today we took a drive out to Big Meadow’s Horse camp. As soon as I got out of the car, I sprayed myself down with bug spray and put on my hat with my new mosquito veil. I remember the last time I was here and the mosquitoes were so bad, I wasn’t going to deal with that again!