There is really almost nothing I love better in the fall than grabbing a couple of hours on a weekend morning, putting
Greensky Bluegrass on my iPod, throwing on a rain jacket, and heading out into the drizzle to explore the wet woods near my house in search of cyans.
There's this beautiful patch of alder woods about 2 miles from my house with a nice walking trail through it. It's a site with lots of forest restoration work being done - planting native species, tearing out blackberries, etc - so there are tons of chips in there around the new little trees they are planting, and I just KNEW there were cyans in there - the microclimate is just perfect - mature alders and lots of chips - and I found one small patch last year. It's also just a beautiful, beautiful autumn deciduous forest, full of amanitas and stropharias and vine maples and ferns and salal.
So today I found an hour to get in there in the rain and I was wet and I was happy and after an hour of looking pretty hard, I was also rewarded. THAT is the best feeling - after an hour of looking and wondering if you're getting warmer, and feeling like they have to be near you because you can sense you are in the PERFECT little cyan micro-habitat, to suddenly look down and go "Oh! Hi there little ones! My little caramel friends!" because there they are peeking out at you from the leaves on the forest floor. Like they've been waiting and wondering when you would get there.
These babies are part of a decently large patch (maybe 50-70 mushrooms) that is in a nice well-hidden spot and they will be just the right size for harvesting in about a week. One of three patches I found, all at the same level of maturity. Good times! Next weekend I'll be harvesting!