Inky Cap Mushrooms

“Quick—get your camera and meet me down where we piled the sheep manure!”

Not exactly the kind of quote you hear often, is it? David was quick to notice inky cap mushrooms that had grown out of the mass of manure and thought it might make an interesting blog entry. He was right.

“Coprinoid” or Inky Cap Mushrooms get their name from their caps which disintegrate, sometimes, within hours (hence the “quick” command). We’ve all seen the species at one time or another. Usually, you’ll find these mushrooms in manure, rotting wood, or forest debris because they help in the decomposition of these materials.

If you’ve ever noticed a small collection of colored “dust” on a leaf or piece of bark near mature mushrooms, you’ve probably witnessed a “spore print.” These are spores which have been released by the mushroom. The Coprinoid caps actually begin in an oval shape and as they mature, the gills liquefy, gently disintegrating. This is their method of reproducing; the spores are picked up and deposited by the wind. 

The urgency was necessary after all; the Inky Caps were gone the next day.

1 Comment

Blog Post About Our Cider-making Webisode

I mentioned in an earlier post that I took the kids to an antique tractor show. One of the displays was an antique cider press…a LARGE, antique cider press. I spoke with the woman handing out the samples of cider. She said her husband came home telling her he thought the dusty old machine he spied at a farm, where he occasionally works, was a press and asked the owners if he could clean it up and bring it to the show.

It was really something to behold. Buckets of apples were dumped and washed on the tray, then gently guided into one of the holders which made its way up the conveyor. They were milled at the top and the scratting collected until a handle released it onto the thick cloth lining a wood tray. Each tray’s cloth was folded over before another tray was placed on top. When a handful of trays had been stacked, the apples were pressed and the cider flowed!

People (as well as bees) gathered to watch the process and, of course, have a taste.  Imagine what this would have meant to a community hundreds of years ago…celebrating a summer’s worth of hard work, welcoming fall, and a delicious reason to gather.

Comments Off on Blog Post About Our Cider-making Webisode

Making Sweet Apple Cider – The Traditional Way

Join Tracy Toth and her son Nathaniel as they make apple cider using a traditional cider press.

1 Comment

« Previous Page