Brent and I are both members of Oregon Wild (formerly Oregon Natural Resources Council). Occasionally they will do educational hikes and workshops around Oregon. They work with our congressmen to preserve what is left of the Oregon wilderness. This one was on Larch Mountain in a section of proposed wilderness and it was all about local mushrooms. We learned which ones were poisonous and which we could eat. We can also identify a couple by scientific name now! We are both interested in botany and thought mushroom ID would be comparable to plant ID. Not so! Mushrooms are pretty difficult to identify, but we had lots of fun. If you are interested in doing something like that you can check it out at www.oregonwild.org Here are a few more photos from Bill Erickson, one of our fellow mushroom hikers. Bill is doing a study on the nesting locations of birds of prey. He rocks. The huge mushroom is an Amanita (never, ever eat those), the reddish one is a Rosy Russula, I’m guessing the one with the cracked cap is a Boletus, the white ones next to it are both Lepiota (in two different growth stages) and the tiny one is a Cystoderma. Sorry, I don’t know the species…they are too difficult to tell for a lot of the mushrooms.

This was a little potluck for the student teachers in Brent’s masters program:

  For our first year anniversary [of dating] Brent and I decided to see Built to Spill

It was a really nice ceremony and we were really sad to see him go.

Hey Everyone,

Check this out and search for your friends too. Click on the link and click on “unclaimed property name search” and type in your name. There are a few Arnells in there…Lauren’s in there…check it out! The page will only tell you if the unclaimed asset is over or under $50.00. It’s lots of fun.

http://www.oregon.gov/DSL/UP/index.shtml

Love,

Amy

We ate lunch with Harry from Harry and the Hendersons!

Here is a photo from our trip to Olympic National Park at the beginning of June!