Scouting

For those outside of Ontario, today was a holiday for us, sometimes known as "Civic holiday" and sometimes known as Simcoe Day. I took off on a scouting mission, checking out local forests for mushroom potential. I didn't expect to find much, since we didn't get the rain I had hoped for, but I'm up for any excuse for a hike in the woods.

I visited one hiking trail that I had been on many years ago, maybe even back in university. The forests didn't hold much mushroom potential there though, at least not on the section of trail I accessed. I drove up to another section of public forest, part of the York Regional Forest group of forests, and this was another spot I had visited some years ago. A few fellow painters and I had stopped there to make some landscape watercolour paintings. As I recall, though, we didn't stay long because there was a lot of poison ivy in there. There is still a lot of poison ivy in there, but I managed to avoid coming home with a rash.

I did find some mushrooms in there, but none that I could identify as tasty edibles. If I can't identify them as mushrooms I know are good to eat, I assume they aren't edible.

I found a third tract of forest on the way back, and just took a brief look at it for future reference. In all, I enjoyed a pleasant morning in the woods and came away with some intelligence for future trips.