Da Keiki Blog

Last weekend (Jan 29/30) we went on a mushroom foray at the Mendecino Coast

Before we left. Leilani takes every chance to demonstrate how strong she is.

Over 70 participants met for breakfast in the big hall

Some participants at the start of Phil’s foray

We started on a forest road

Belen found the biggest edible mushroom – a pigs ear.

Bicyclists had built ramps

The end of the “official” foray. But we kept going until it was too dark to see.

Some of us kept going. Some just played.

The loot. Mostly yellow feet and hedgehogs

Sonja’s happy.

All the species of mushrooms were presented in the lab. 217 total.

These were not brought to the lab. I cleaned and cooked about 12 pounds (after cleaning, before cooking), that’s probably less than a third on the photo. Leilani actually protested the first non-mushroom meal in 3 days… and we have 5 portions frozen.

The kids played for a while, then they actually helped me clean the mushrooms.

Sunday we went out on our own with Kelby, Belen and Sylvia. We doubled out loot.

We had a freezing cold luncgh at this pretty spot

We tried to make it to Kass creek, but the roads were closed and it was too far to walk. So we went to this pretty forest along 20 and picked some more mushrooms.

Andy and Leilani played at the stream.

Pigs Ears

Winter chanterelles or yellowfeet

Coral mushroom

Yellow waxy cap

Club or coral?

Maybe dried up chicken lips

Waxy cap

Hygrocybe miniata (another waxy cap)

Little grey mushrooms

Playing at school – Mariana and Stephanie

Oliver, Narnia and Jay

Still likes princesses…

Leilani can now cut he own food – she cut all of this egg and insisted on the photo being taken – big milestone I suppose

At a playdate with Oliver she built this castle from magnetic tiles

The opossum [and?] Peaches (the baby mammoth) I feel incredibly guilty about this blog having been named “Da Baby Blog” and now “Da Keiki Blog” as Leilani wants nothing to do with “The”

That was a really nice Bay Area sunrise, but we’ll soon have even better sunrises – not quite 7 weeks till the move… (I’m adding this on 2/3 to the older post)

We went to Rancho San Antonio with Ella and her parents. There had been parachuters in the goodie bag, and the girls let them fly off the big log

We saw a group of people and went over to see what was going on – a California Hawk had caught a snake and was eating it up on the tree.

The obnoxious photographers bothered him, and so he retreated to a farther away branch. (Sorry, Hawk… hope you still got to finish the dinner)

Down the rabbit hole like Alice…

The turkeys were fun to watch

When we saw the clouds I kind of thought we should wait for sunset

It was spectacular. Too bad we were in the car…

We were invited by Shay and Ayelet to come over for dinner. The girls were really happy to play together

We were invited to Ethan’s 4th Birthday!

They all love bouncy castles

Each kid got to hit the Pinata exactly once before it broke. I still think it is a weird habit, to have some cute papermache animal and beat it with a stick until it breaks.

Phil Ackerly the magician out up a great show for the kids

Leilani couldn’t resist the rocking horse – very similar to the one she had.