How I Spent My Birthday

I know it’s been awhile.

Between working 50-60 hours a week and canning, canning, freezing, and canning, and then not having anything to report on my wheat harvest, I’ve really let the old blog go.

I absolutely have to tell you about today though.

Today I got to do something that I’ve been wanting to do ever since we got to Oregon in March of 2007.  Today I got to go mushrooming!

I’d planned on spending the day out in the yard cleaning up the vegetable beds and thinning the collards and carrots, but last night at dinner Rae said, “what are you guys doing tomorrow? You wanna go hunt chanterelles?”

Did we ever!

Today was my fifty-fourth birthday, and I got to spend it tromping around in the woods on a beautiful, sunny, warm autumn day with a sharp knife in my hands.  I could not have been happier, I don’t think.  I didn’t tell Rae it was my birthday because I didn’t want her to feel awkward or duty bound about anything. Instead, I got to reap her generosity and time just because she was willing to give it to me.   That is the best kind of gift, I think.

Needless to say, we filled a shopping bag full of chanterelles.  Tonight we had them in a cream sauce with bacon and garlic over pasta, and tomorrow night we’ll have them with steak.  Tomorrow I think we’re going to dehydrate some of them, but Rae sautes them with butter and garlic and then freezes that.  If you have any ideas, let me know.

In the meantime, the memory of a great day spent out in the woods will probably last a lot longer than the mushrooms themselves.

Thanks Rae.