Month: October 2010

I surrender.

Take a look at this magnificent sample of nature’s offerings. Stunning. It’s a coral mushroom, otherwise known as coral hydnum in the family hericium coralloides.

Jim Kalnin and Lois Huey- Heck arrived on the weekend to begin installing their work for the Fall Projects. Nancy volunteered for ladder duty and we made our way into the park to scout out locations for the work. Not far into the woods I spotted this beauty from the corner of my eye. Growing out of a fallen cottonwood there were two large coral mushrooms, one about a foot long and three inches tall and the other about nine inches in diameter and four inches tall.

As luck would (or wouldn’t in my case) have it, Jim Kalnin is a bit of a quasi expert on wild mushrooms. “I’ve eaten over a hundred varieties of wild mushrooms, he said. I used to pick them where I grew up in Manitoba.” I warn him not to talk about it, I try to explain that I can’t be trusted with this kind of information (see last blog for more on this). At that point his partner Lois interjects, “He’s 67, and he’s still here.” Okay, proof. I tried my best not to listen but failed miserably.

Jim demonstrated the keys to determining if a mushroom is poisonous or not and shared the wisdom of the most important lesson in wild mushroom hunting and that is to be able to identify the toxic ones first. Now that makes sense.

We marvelled at them. The purity of the colour tone, creamy white with chocolate dipped tufts like a perfectly baked Pavlova, the foot emerging from thick cottonwood bark established a firm foothold embedded in the crevices. Each eruption peaked, and dropped off the ends were vertical stalactite tendrils giving the impression of something both alien and familiar, something that may be from the ocean or may be from a subterranean cave, something that was white and precious with otherworldly notions of scarcity and sacredness, something that needed to be protected and honoured.  Something that was found in this very place called Woodhaven. I am in awe, once again, at the wisdom and foresight of Joan and Jim Burbridge. We are so fortunate to have this place in our community and so very fortunate to be able to bring art onto this land in a celebration of collaboration and response with nature.

Sunday, October 24, 1pm  Fall Projects Opening

I have books. I have books about birds, plants, and animals. I have books about the solar system, the deep sea, art books, cook books and a zillion “how to” type books. There’s even poetry in my collection, it’s a reference library – no fiction.

I’ve always wanted a mushroom book. One of those fancy,  full colour, photographic, information loaded page turners. The kind of book that provides all sorts of identifiers and double-checks so the distinguishing features of any mushroom I could potentially encounter in the wild would be burned into my brain so thouroughly, that if I plucked and sautéed one of those goodies I’d never get sick. But quite frankly, I don’t trust myself. If I had a mushroom book I’d be out there in the woods every autumn gathering and referencing. I’d be buttering up a pan and selecting just the right type of garlic or cream to accompany my harvest (maybe a swish of sherry for good measure). This would be an error. Even people who are expert in identifying mushrooms get it wrong sometimes. I cannot be trusted with this kind of information so I don’t buy the book. I am, however, fascinated with them.

Mushrooms have mycelium. This is the root structure that extends from the base into the host material. For educated and serious mushroom pickers it is imperative they never destroy this mycelium because maintaining its connection to the host ensures growth the following year. Of course mushrooms are never picked in Woodhaven. In fact there are provincial guidelines that determine allowable and restricted areas for cultivation. Here is the provincial website that’ll tell you where and when – if you care to do this sort of thing.  http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/rsi/publicuse/MushroomPicking.htm

So with that all said I don’t have a clue what any of these mushrooms are. I do know that the one pictured first is big. There are a mass of them at the edge of my garden and when I first saw them it was an Alice in Wonderland experience. The biggest one in the group was over ten inches across and others in the cluster were nearing that size.

There are mushrooms and fungus popping up all over the place at Woodhaven right now. Here are a few more images of what I’ve found. If anyone can identify them and knows if they’re edible or not please don’t tell me about it. My insatiable curiosity will drive me to try them and that could be an error that I may not recover from.

Sunday, October 24, 1:30 ~ Join us for the opening of the Fall Projects in Woodhaven. There will be performance, photography, collaborative drawings, sculpture, little packets of blessing and more………

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The season has come for wordsmiths to wander about Woodhaven and add their meandering thoughts to the community poetry in the park. Nancy Holmes, head of Creative & Critical Studies at UBCO, has installed a sturdy weatherproof packet against the upright post of the information board in the parking lot. It is filled with bits of paper, on them are written one or two sentences to contemplate while walking the trails. Pencils are provided and when you’re done, the notes can be dropped in the mailbox at the entrance to the park. Nancy will pick up her “mail” and weave your words into a poem that will be presented at our Fall Project opening October 24^th.

Above is photo of Rose and Maureen selecting a sentence to ponder. These women (along with others) recently spent an afternoon at Woodhaven making spontaneous contour line drawings and paintings as part of a workshop with Lisa Lipsett from Salt Spring Island. Lisa was in town to facilitate a two day workshop called Creative by Nature, the basis of which is that creativity and nature go hand in hand with personal well being. Woodhaven is a natural for this type of activity.

On Tuesday the following week, Karen Close brought her eight week Sage-ing in Creative Spirit group for a similar exercise, contemplation in nature and contour line drawings.  The drawings were magnificent! The women in this group also made a contribution to the Community Poem. What a wonderful combination, mindful observation, spontaneous drawings and poetry.

Make a contribution to the Community Poem now so Nancy can pull it all together by October 24^th for our Fall Projects opening day, 1:30-4:30 at 4711 Raymer Road.