Hunting The Elusive Mushroom: Part I

Mushroom hunting has got to be one my most favorite things to do in the fall, here in Oregon. Although some call it "mushroom picking", I prefer the "hunting" part.

Pictured here is a chanterelle. It's pretty common here in the Pacific Northwest, if you know where to look. Some people pick or hunt 'shrooms for profit. If you do that, you gotta have a permit. But we just do it for our own consumption and because we like the outdoors, and it's way more fun to hike with an objective rather than hiking just to get to the top of a hill.

My husband and I have our spots that we go back to year after year. Unfortunately, sometimes others find our "honey spots", and we have to try to beat them to it the next week.

Today and yesterday were great days for finding this wonderful delicacy. We found probably about 5 lbs yesterday, and 3 lbs today. But hunting here for the chanterelles is not always easy.

First of all, the mushroom picking season just happens to coincide with the deer hunting season. So we have to make sure that we talk really loud while we are in the woods so stupid people wont shoot us. We also wear bright clothing and our bright orange I-am-not-a-deer hats. We rarely hunt mushrooms on the weekends, because that is when most of the deer hunters are out. And I'm sure it pisses them off when we are making so much noise in the woods, trying not to get shot, that all the deer are scared away. Don't get me wrong, I love venison, but I'm only tramping around a very small part of the forest, and the deer have so much more room. Away from me. When we bring our dogs with us, we put bright colored bandannas around there necks so they don't get shot either. Unfortunately one of my dogs looks like a wolf, and another looks like a small bear. And some hunters don't care which season it is. If they see it, they will shoot it.

Another Cool Thing I Found

Here is just another funny thing I found, while surfing the net today.

Either put your own criteria in (if you like to be insulted), or use the facts from the one you hate most.

The Insult Generator

Where's My Stick?!?

If I had a dollar for every person I've wanted to smack with a really big stick, and didn't; I would be so stinkin' rich by now.

Just a few of the people I would like to smack, and why:

1. Martha Stewart; she just deserves it. Anybody that can screw with other people's lives, go to jail, whine about her ankle bracelet, and how hard it is to live in her 8 million dollar prison, just deserves to be smacked with a very big stick!
2. OJ Simpson; deserves to be hit repeatedly with the aforementioned stick. A big one. We all know why.
3. President Bush; just because. There are so many reasons, I can't list them all.
4. People who cut me off in traffic; is there something wrong with their blinker? Is there some kind of law that says they absolutely need to be right in front of me at a particular time in their lives? I think not. Smack! Right upside the head.
5. My neighbor who has 10 cats; none are spayed or neutered, because they think that it is in-humane. Whatever. They (the cats that is) crap in my flowerbeds. They leave footprints on my car. They dig in my flowerbeds. They come into my yard, because they are stupid to remember that I have three dogs. I have three cats myself. Three indoor cats. I don't think anyone else should have to deal with cats that I chose to have as pets. Keep them to yourself.
6. My other neighbor who has two evil dogs; they always choose to let the dogs out into their backyard, when the kids are waiting for the school bus about five feet away. So of course the dogs bark and growl at the kids the entire time the kids are waiting for their bus. Hello? Can they not wait another five minutes to let their dogs outside? Jeez.

Anyway, I guess I am done ranting for now. I'm not sure how I got started on this, but I guess it all started when I couldn't find my stick.

Sometimes Being Hot is a Curse

Ok, so my son was out of town visiting his great grandparents. Normally I would be a bitch about it and say "no", but I started thinking that they are pretty much almost dead, so what the hell. Right?

Anyway, while he was gone, my girlfriend from California came to visit. In the past it was always "girls night out." Apparently not this time.

Every other time she comes up here to visit, I am always the last one to know. (I don't think the other girls like me, but oh well.) And the other girls always say to dress casual. Apparently casual to them is not the same as it is for me. The last few times I showed up wearing jeans, and a t-shirt that says something like "Who needs big tits when you have an ass like mine", or something along those lines. And they are wearing their cute little caprees, pretty blouses and little cute sandals that match. I am, shall we say, a little underdressed. Anyway....Not this time.

This Friday, I showed up dressed to kill. "Kill what?", you might ask? I'm not sure, but I was DROP DEAD GORGEOUS! (If I do say so myself.) So, I get to the house where we were meeting at, and....No one dressed nice at all. They didn't look like bums or anything, but come on! No effort was taken at all! So of course I was the one now "over dressed". Crap. Apparently I cannot win at this game.

So I decided just to be the "hot one" in the group. Which would of been great, except for one thing. Around ten o'clock, everyone pooped out. Except me. "Early soccer game", "early volleyball game for the kids", "I have a severely broken leg and don't want to be around drunk people". BLAH BLAH BLAH. I've heard it all.

So I ended up going out by myself, looking extremely hot, to the bar that my hubby works at. And apparently no other women wanted to take any time on themselves either, because I was pretty much the hottest chick there. I don't know if it was the crappy weather or what, but I'm taking the credit where I can.

After I got home, I looked in the full length mirror, and decided I was not so bad, for a thirty-two year old. I almost had to fend them off with a stick. Not really, but it's my fantasy anyway.