It poured rain here over the last two days. A welcome change to the dry weather we have been experiencing for most of the past few weeks. Though that meant we could not go rock picking; so sad that made me. Ron told me that he wanted to go out to THF after work today to check on possible flooding. We get lots of water out there in all sorts of odd places, but have not yet been able to figure out where it is coming from. I think we need to have someone come out there with their drone and a camera to fly over the place and see what they can find.
When we got out to the Farm we were surprised but pleased to see that the creek wasn’t flooded and more importantly that all those rocks we had so carefully picked and dumped into the gully, I guess you’d call it, they were still there. We were even more surprised to find more mushrooms.

We had come with a couple small paper bags just on the chance we found few that were ready for picking. There were more than a few. They were all over the place.

Ron and I had to move the logs around so we could get to them. And Ron was kept busy dispatching the slugs too. The problem is that every one of the mushrooms was soaked with rain. Not what you want for really good Shiitakes. This batch is going to be dehydrated.   We going to have to a plan for the future. While the dried ones are said to be great, people really want to buy the fresh ones.

We walked to the far end of THF to check on the Red Wine Cap mushrooms and were shocked to find them also flowering. All that rain. It just pushed everything over the edge. I am actually hoping for colder weather soon. That should put a stop to the mushrooms until next spring. When we will be ready for them, I hope.

Ron picked the two largest ones, these you simply pull right out of the bed. They are so pretty, the color is amazing. We carried them all back to the Transit and headed home. The paper bags themselves were soggy by the time we got there. We had Jo lay a beach towel out on a table so we could try and dry the mushrooms while I got dinner going. Didn’t really make much of a dent in the wet. Ron then had to figure how you actually cook Red Wine Caps. Apparently they don’t go well with garlic and butter. Who knew? He found recipe that we had all ingredients for and gave it a try. Fennel seeds, nutmeg, white wine and lemon juice. Jo said he used too much lemon. He was winging it again as the recipe called for 12 cups of mushrooms and he only had the two.
Then he cleaned and cut up the Shiitakes and I got them into our dehydrator. They say it should take 6-8 hours. But I am betting on just a bit longer. Come morning, we will see how they did. Thank goodness Ron is on a 10 year plan. That gives us lots of time to learn what we need to.