Mushroom hunting

[Christina Zawerucha]

Yesterday, I worked on part of a rainwater harvesting system for my garden. We've hung up gutters that run into food-grade rain barrels. We'll be adding spickets shortly that will allow water from the roof of our house to water our entire garden, as well as a garden sink that we salvaged from the dump.
Today I woke up early and went up to Westchester to attend a mushroom identification hike. Don Shernoff, an amateur mycologist for nearly 60 years, took us for a hike on a trail where a train used to be. It's been really rainy and we saw so many mushrooms!!!! Most of these were not edible. But, we found wine cap mushrooms and deer mushrooms. Wine cap mushrooms are very distinct because they have purple gills and a corrugated skirt. I brought them back to my house and cooked them with butter and fresh garlic scapes and fresh spinach from our garden. My roommates are enjoying it as I write this post. What a productive weekend!