A Year in the Forest

I got to go out in the woods in the morning today.  It is cooler and this morning a little quieter.  The air is moist and the ground is dry.  The leaves are coming down more all the time and all the paths are now covered with leaves.  For some reason, the leaf colors don’t seem as bright this year, probably the hot dry weather.  I took a little time and went off my beaten path today and was rewarded by the change. 

First I found enough oyster mushrooms to make a good batch to cook.  Second, I followed my nose and found another paw-paw patch with ripe paw-paws all over the ground.  I gathered about 20 good fruits and left that many more that had some blemish on them (usually something took a bit or two out of them).  There are few things as sweet smelling as paw-paws.  They make things like honey-suckle and corn pale by comparison.  Super sweet smell.

The log which had 2 or 3 pounds of mushrooms a couple of days ago was completely cleaned out today.