Blue Mushrooms

This summer's changing weather has made foraging wild edible mushrooms difficult. The hot/dry conditions in the early summer slowed or reduced mushroom gathering. The current late summer/early fall rains have restarted some mushrooms and I'm starting to find some nice Indigo milk cap (Lactarius indigo) "Blue Mushrooms". The indigo milk cap is a blue or blue-gray mushroom that exudes a dark blue milk when cut or damaged.

Indigo milk cap mushrooms are edible and we cooked these in butter, along with a couple of chanterelle mushrooms I found.
( Don’t eat any wild mushrooms without first checking with a local expert)

Stressed Out Potatoes

We planted four potato varieties in our garden this year; Russet, Red, White, and Fingerlings. All four varieties did very good, but some of the Russets had strange shapes. This condition is caused by heat and watering stress. We had long stretches of temperatures over 90 degrees Fahrenheit along with extended dry spells which causes the tubers to stop growing. We then had multiple days of soaking rain that started the tubers growing new potatoes from the main tuber to give them a snowman shape.

Spaghetti Sauce

It's almost Labor Day and this year's garden is starting to produce lots of ripe tomatoes ...

The tomatoes are big ...

Our garden produced a lot of garlic ...

Lots of ripe peppers and other ingredients are ready in the garden ...

It's time to make a batch of spaghetti sauce. Canned 17½ quarts of spaghetti sauce from the first batch.

Counting Down Until Turkey Season

I recently had some road work done on a cabin property ATV trail. Yesterday I noticed a flock of turkeys in this area as I graded the trail and reseeded it with a mix of winter wheat and grass seed. Today I found the flock of turkeys on the trail eating the winter wheat seed. I was able to get within 10 yards of some birds as I completed working on the trail. It's only two months until the start of fall turkey season.

Penn's Cave

As this summer is winding down it's time to take grandson Reed and his cousins Liam and Neva on a field trip to Penn's Cave in Centre Hall, PA. A walk down to the cave entrance.

Unlike most tours of caves, this limestone cave tour is accessed by boat.

Some of the many limestone formations in the cave.

After the cave tour, we were off to a bus ride wildlife tour. It was a warm day and several of the animals were seeking cooler locations in the shade (except for the pack of wolves which had their own air conditioned shed). Bison located in a field directly over the cave.

A young elk and its mother.

"Cauliflower" the white deer.

A mountain lion waking up from a nap.

Time for the kids to burn up some energy in a maze challenge. Neva and her dad looking for marked checkpoints.

Barn Bats

Over the last fifteen years bat populations have dropped by up to 98% in some areas mostly due to white-nose syndrome, a fatal fungal disease for bats. A few years ago, grandson Reed helped construct a bat house which was placed on the side of our barn. The bat house was a success with the bats and one evening this week I counted at least 35 bats exiting the bat house. This week I found this bat in the lower level of the barn, hanging upside down from a mortise in a large beam. The common, highly descriptive, name for this bat is "big brown bat" (Eptesicus fuscus).

Big brown bats typically eat agricultural pests, like cucumber beetles and stinkbugs. A small colony of 25 bats can eat a pound of insects every night. A link to my blog post on constructing a bat house. Building Habitat for Homeless Bats, Oct. 2023

Bird Bath

A few years ago we remodeled our bathroom and then repurposed the old cast iron bathtub as a watering trough for wildlife at our West Hill property. All types of wildlife visit this old bathtub and this red-tailed hawk used it as an extra large bird bath.

Penguin Encounter

Grandson Reed has a fascination with penguins...

So his dad arranged a penguin encounter for him at The Wild Animal Park in Chittanago NY.

This penguin encounter allowed Reed to have very close access to some very friendly South African penguins (Spheniscus demersus).

Feeding big fish to small penguins. These penguins can eat a lot of fish.

After a large meal of fish the penguins needed some exercise chasing bubbles.

The penguins were very friendly and curious.

After a long day of entertaining guests, eating fish and chasing bubbles, the penguins needed some rest.

Bobcat

Checking the game cameras at our West Hill property this weekend and got this nice photo of a Bobcat.

Eastern Painted Turtle

Another turtle found in the road. This time it was an Eastern Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta picta) in the road to our cabin, not far from our pond. This turtle had a shell of about 5 inches and was most likely looking for a place to lay eggs.

Snapping Turtle

While traveling between our barn and cabin I found this snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) in the middle of the township road. Snapping turtles very seldom leave the protection of water, but this is most likely a female turtle preparing to lay eggs. This was one of the more friendly snapping turtles I've encountered and almost appears to be smiling.

Snapping turtles can live about 100 years and this one had a shell of about 12 inches, which is average for an adult.

Since the middle of a road isn't a safe place for any turtle, I moved it into our lawn.

Early Buck Scouting

It's still a few months until the start of deer season but a good time to check out the local bucks.

Young Raccoon

I'm starting to see a lot of this year's young animals on my evening wildlife rides. While most of the adult wildlife are nocturnal, many young animals may venture out in the early evening due to hunger pangs and looking for food. I found this lone/young raccoon along one of the trails on our property. I was able to get within 5 feet of this raccoon for the photo.

Bear Encounter

Black bear sightings are becoming more frequent in our neighborhood. This morning, while I was talking to one of the neighbors, this black bear ran across another neighbor's lawn and crossed the township road in front of us.

New Antlers

I found this yearling buck along the road to our cabin during my evening wildlife drive. Being a yearling, last year's fawn, this is the young buck's first set of antlers. These antlers are still developing and covered in soft, blood-rich, fuzzy skin known as velvet.