It's so dry! There's literally visible cracks in the dirt between the tufts of grass in the the yard. We have seen approximately 2 days of real rain since June. It's all around us but here in SW PA we're so thirsty that even the hardy weeds are drooping. I may have to start bringing a watering can to my shrooming spots.
I keep seeing posts in my various shrooming groups of people hauling boletes, chanterelles, and even early Hen of the Woods (Grifola frondosa) out of their woods. Meanwhile, my hen tree still has last year's shriveled remnants clinging to the roots.
Pretty much the only things growing are the inedible deadwood growing shrooms like the currently prolific black-footed polypore (Polyporus badius), and old dried out COWs (apparently, I missed a couple).
A couple weeks ago, a friend sent me a message about an enormous mushroom growing in his basement window well. So, naturally, I ran over to see if I could eat it...like you do. It turned out to be a monster Black-staining Polypore (Meripilus sumstinei). And yes, I ate some of it. Not choice, but not bad either. It doesn't smell great fresh, very intense musty mushroomy smell, but anything thrown into a pan to soak up some garlic and butter tastes pretty great. Good to know in case all other good edibles become sparse. I tossed most of it on a long dead stump in the backyard.
(Forgive the cellphone pics, I brought my DSLR but found the card slots empty upon arrival to the woods.)
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