Oh, I am SO on the same page.
I've loved mushrooms since I was a kid, and one of the things that excited us when we first looked at the place we ultimately bought was that we found some past-their-prime morels and chanterelles.
Naturally, in ten years we've been here, we've never seen another morel, and have seen only a tiny scattering of chanterelles.
But we have found a fair number of boletes, and other edible mushrooms, including coral mushrooms, so all has not been in vain.
We also for a time had a really nice patch of mushrooms by the studio, which are identical to a mushroom that is highly revered in Poland, and which I promptly discovered that I despise with a purple passion.
Which is okay, too, as that leaves more for Marek and his dad.
I'll post the name once I think of it. I may have blocked it out due to trauma. ;-)
Sarniak. Finally came to me. Revered, and very pricey, in Poland. Tastes to me somewhat as I imagine road tar might taste. Yum.
Here's one description: "Scaly tooth mushroom or tiled hydnum, an edible fungus with a slightly bitter aftertaste."
Slightly bitter - no. The IPAs I love are slightly bitter. Sarniak is like voluntarily eating battery acid. Hard pass for me.
Anyway, Marek and I spoke yesterday of his desire to go mushrooming in the woods where he is in Ohio, and I was literally thinking earlier this afternoon of going ahead and ordering a couple of mushroom kits, and lo and behold, I came across your post.
There are no coincidences.
I'll start with a couple of varieties of oyster mushrooms, along with lion's mane, simply because they are easiest and fastest to grow, and then branch into more difficult and slow-growing varieties over time.
The basement in the studio will likely be a perfect grow room, although I'll have to add better light.
And, of course, I've already made a bunch of extract from our plentiful turkey tail mushrooms in late spring/early summer. They're still growing VERY well on the fallen hickory tree that smashed into the roof edge of our studio last year.
I'm also still considering sacrificing one of our many oak trees, and inoculating it with hen of the woods, which is similar to chicken of the woods, but grows at the base of the tree, rather than higher up on the trunk.
I came across a huge hen of the woods colony a few years back, ironically when I got lost en route to a mushroom identification class (again - there are no coincidences), and although I didn't really have enough materials for proper mushroom collecting, I took about a third of the colony.
I was shocked at how many people said that they would have taken it all, but that's not how I was taught; I was taught that, whenever foraging, to take a third, leave a third for the next forager, and a third for critters, and to NEVER take it all.
I feel a lot better sticking to that. I consider it part of being respectful of nature, and of those who come after me.
Plus, the colony I found was at the base of an oak tree on the grounds of a small church, so the LAST thing I would do is to take it all, as who knows how many others may have been waiting to harvest it?
Marek says I think too much of others, and not enough of myself, but in my view there has to be a balance, because I'd be pretty ticked if someone came onto my place and harvested all of something I'd been waiting for, though I realize, it's not exactly the same.
In any case, mushrooms are awesome, and incredibly healthy, so there's nowhere to go but up.
;-)
Thanks for your post, and take care, @riverflows!!!