Time for mushrooms

I’ve been putting off going mushrooming for a while now, as I have an awful lot on with the start of my new business, and anyway, it still seems too warm and dry.
I wasn’t overly confident of finding many mushrooms so I took my smaller basket.
Besides, my large basket is just about at the end [...]

I’ve been putting off going mushrooming for a while now, as I have an awful lot on with the start of my new business, and anyway, it still seems too warm and dry.

I wasn’t overly confident of finding many mushrooms so I took my smaller basket.

Besides, my large basket is just about at the end of its life having carried, in its time, TONS and TONS of wild mushrooms (perhaps I exaggerate slighlty?)

In the end, the smaller basket was perfect. I found enough to cover the bottom of the basket and I enjoyed a good walk around the back lanes of Cournon.

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A fruitless foray

As it was such a beautiful morning, Jill and I decided to go out for a quick walk in the woods.
It would be our first time since we moved here two weeks ago.
Obviously, neither of us expected to find anything but, we took the basket just in case.
One of the nice things about living in [...]

As it was such a beautiful morning, Jill and I decided to go out for a quick walk in the woods.

It would be our first time since we moved here two weeks ago.

Obviously, neither of us expected to find anything but, we took the basket just in case.

One of the nice things about living in Bains sur Oust is our proximity to the forest. Back at Les Croix, it used to take 40 mintues for me to walk into the forest. Now, don’t get me wrong, I used to enjoy the walk but… here I am just 3 minutes walk from the woods. I think that will mean many more mushrooming forays for me!

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Another early start

Another early morning, the cats can’t understand it. I went into the forest on foot and headed over to the South-East of the forest. I don’t know if they were out visiting or still in bed but, there was no sign of the family of deer
I wasn’t expecting to get many mushrooms as the Eastern [...]

Another early morning, the cats can’t understand it. I went into the forest on foot and headed over to the South-East of the forest. I don’t know if they were out visiting or still in bed but, there was no sign of the family of deer

I wasn’t expecting to get many mushrooms as the Eastern side of the forest is not as productive as the Western side. It was, thus, a surprise to come across a Cep almost straight away – a good start!

I like the walk around the Eastern side of the forest; it gives me time to think and, if I get it right, I tend to pop out of the forest on the Western side near the village of Lanouee. Lanouee has 3 bars – it’s strange that I often end up there?

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An early start

Well, no trouble getting up, this week. I’ve been looking forward to this so much that I woke up every hour, on the hour, though the night.
It was worth the effort as 3 hours wandering round the North of the forest yielded just over 3 kilos of mixed mushrooms. I put about a kilogram of [...]

Well, no trouble getting up, this week. I’ve been looking forward to this so much that I woke up every hour, on the hour, though the night.

It was worth the effort as 3 hours wandering round the North of the forest yielded just over 3 kilos of mixed mushrooms. I put about a kilogram of the best, the Ceps, in a basket for Madam (my landlady) and shall be using some of the rest in a sort of slow cooked risotto that I discovered by accident and then found out that the author (and foodie), Julian Barnes has discovered the same thing himself.

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Lost….twice!

What should have been a great start to the real mushrooming year got off to a bad start on Saturday…. with me oversleeping!  Around this time of the year, you really have to be the first in the forest to get the best of the Ceps. Waking up at 9:30am doesn’t help your chances!
So, instead [...]

What should have been a great start to the real mushrooming year got off to a bad start on Saturday…. with me oversleeping!  Around this time of the year, you really have to be the first in the forest to get the best of the Ceps. Waking up at 9:30am doesn’t help your chances!

So, instead of finding this parking area clear (as I would usually expect), as you can see, my car (the white van) is at the back of the queue.

And I was also at the back of the queue, in terms of mushrooms. This part of the forest (right at the north) is very popular in the Autumn and usually yields good results. Perhaps it had today for those early birds but not for me.

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The First Foray

Today was my first trip into the forest since June (when the Forest was bare apart from one solitary Summer Cep).
As you can see from the photo on the left, there wasn’t much about and, what there was, wasn’t of particularly high quality (Click on the photo for a better view – don’t forget to [...]

Today was my first trip into the forest since June (when the Forest was bare apart from one solitary Summer Cep).

As you can see from the photo on the left, there wasn’t much about and, what there was, wasn’t of particularly high quality (Click on the photo for a better view – don’t forget to use the Back button to return).

I drove in to the South-West side of the forest and left the car. There is a track along the Southern edge of the forest that has some special spots (petits coins in French) where I usually find the first Ceps of the year. Today, however, all was bare. I headed North until I hit the Les Forges road, then West towards Les Cinq Chemins. As I was shuffling along the side of the road, poking around in the ditch, a car pulled up… “Any luck?”, the driver asked.

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