!Oyster mushrooms --- agk's diary 7 November 2023 @ 14:15 UTC --- written on iPad Air 4 (2020) while daughter and roommate make coffee --- We tromped through trailless fall woods, Evy, daughter, me, Mr. Chris, dog Ender. We tromped fast over the ridge, down towards the folds in the land, down down down daughter sang, down into the holler. We disturbed oak leaves around deadfall. Found some puffballs, but they'd already went to spore. Some- thing spindly & yellow also, but not safe to eat. Endless woody turkeytails, colorful and banded as the insides of agates. Down down down, the streambed dry, down down down til there was cold mud underfoot. When briars and twigs hit her in the face, daughter yells Oh no! Sticks! Down down down to some pools of water, trees downed in some storm, bark still on, bridging the tight holler around the stream, a few busted down into the streambed. Daughter splashed barefoot in the cold water, heaved rocks, floated dead leaves. She likes to sing these things: A great big wind is coming through the woods, it's going to blow *all* the people off the earth! Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman! Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread! A tree, bark still on, busted down into a small pool of water on the slate stream bed. Its newly- dead wood wicks moisture up from the stream to a shady spot by the soil it leans down from. Nestled in there, an earthy-smelling cluster of oyster mushroom fruiting bodies for us to cut and take home to eat. Down down down, but before we got out of oak into sycamore, another little stand, the same way, on a downed tree with its bark still on, broken down into the streambed where it wicks water up to its delicious saprophytes. The way out was a little bloody with briars as we kept a ridgetop between us and the firing range, but deep in those woods I shook down persimmons, sweetly shriveled and orange on the otherwise bare branches of their tree. Simmons! daughter exalted, and we shared the honeyed fruits. At home I sauteed some of the oyster mushrooms in butter, added diced onions and garlic, kale and soaked, pressure-cooked garbanzo beans, smoked paprika and soy sauce. A little kimchi on the side. Nice and spicy, daughter says.