Goals are Moving Targets

I was raised on the Oregon Coast, and I enjoy hiking in the woods.

A while back, I signed up for a class on wild mushroom identification. I learned the basics of finding, recognizing and cooking some of the many varieties of edibles in the rain forest. I learned to find some basic varieties: boletus, chanterelles and corals. The process of hiking in the woods was more gratifying, because now I brought home some dinner! I had become the mighty hunter.

I drew conclusions from my experience. First, edible mushrooms sprout in the fall, after a rain. Also, they grow on the humus-y mossy forest floor. I knew because that was when and where I found them.

Jared, my little four year old nephew, had just moved up from LA, and I wanted to make an Oregon boy out of him. One sunny day in August, I decided to take him on a hike in the forest behind our house. Even though it wasn't autumn yet, I told him to keep his eyes open for mushrooms as we walked. After all, he was closer to the ground.

I had to explain what a mushroom was.

I usually cover miles when I hike. I have adult legs, some say long legs. Jared was barely the size of a sword fern. Areas that I would plow through, he had to tangle with just to get around. His little legs were only a third the size of mine, so to keep up he would have to take at least three steps to my one.

But he wasn't keeping up.

His attention span was another thing. He had to stop and LOOK at everything, smell it, poke it or ask a question about it. He also had other ideas about the direction we took.

Patience has never been easy for me, so I tried to persuade him to move faster.

"Hurry up, Jared, look at this tree root."

He tried to hurry, four year old style. We weren't making much progress.

"Hey, Jared! Look, there is a bird over there!"

A banana slug had caught his attention.

While I was waiting, I noticed the sun filtering through the trees. It dappled through the canopy and warmed the ground, smelling of wood, moss and berries. The verdant shades of green almost had a calming effect on me.

Still, no mushroom sightings. Not even non-edibles. I knew it was summer, but I wanted to find at least one mushroom to show him.

I looked back and saw that Jared had stopped again. This time he was looking up.

"What are you doing? Come one, we have mushrooms to find!"

His little freckled face was twisted into a question mark as he squinted upward.

"Jared, look on the ground!"

"Aunt Cwissy, there are some mushrooms up there." He pointed up a dead alder snag. I started to tell him, again, that mushrooms grow on the ground when I looked up and saw that he was right! There were mushrooms growing up that tree - a hundred or more of them, the type I didn't recognize.

I congratulated Jared for discovering this new type of mushroom. I collected a few and saved them to identify.

The next day, I took them to the county mycological expert. She recognized them immediately. Pleurotus Ostreatus. Oyster mushrooms. Choice edibles. Flavored with a slight hint of anise - perfect for pizza. You can buy them at the grocery store for $10/pound.

Later, I went back and filled a paper sack full of these oyster mushrooms from the tree that Jared had discovered.

These mushrooms grow almost year around, and always on dead alders. Many of those snags are still standing.

I had assumed that mushrooms just grew on the ground, because that was the only place that I had ever looked. I had assumed that they sprouted in fall, because that was the only time that I ever looked.

Now, when I forage for mushrooms, I imagine little Jared hiking with me, slowing me down. I find more mushrooms when I stop and look around me. I also see and smell more of the serene beauty that our rain forest has to offer.

And I'm more careful about making assumptions.