Da Keiki Blog

[Comments by Andy]

Behind Mt Tam actually (in Marin county, north across the Golden Gate bridge), in the Marin watershed district where mushroom picking is allowed. We found some boletes here last time, but there were not too many mushrooms anymore. I think that other mushroom hunters must’ve picked the area clean.

We did find lots of inedible mushrooms that make nice photos and a few edible black trumpets, enough for one nice dinner (supplemented with the button mushrooms from Leilani’s box…).

Look at the big wood-ears on the tree next to Leilani’s hand:

Here’s a closeup:

Some sort of cup fungus:

With all the winter rain and a week of sunshine, everything is green again:

A type of elfin saddle:

Sonja doesn’t know how this mushroom got so red in photoshop:

The first spring flowers, here an Indian Warrior:

A Shooting Star:

And an Iris:

Lots of cool lichen in these damp woods:

And more funky fungi:

We went to Point Reyes and met Belen and Kelby again. They love playing together:

There is also a reconstructed Miwok village close by:

[Andy’s comments in green]

This winter, Sonja got interested in picking mushrooms again. In January, we went to a mushroom expo in Santa Cruz, and Sonja joined their “Fungus Federation.” Besides having a neat forum to discuss mushrooms, one big benefit was going on their weekend foray to the Mendocino Coast (the second time the club has gone). They organized the lodging at a research field station in a little town called Albion, and led mushroom hunting hikes in the Jackson State Forest nearby.

Leilani made new friends as soon as we arrived. Belen and her younger brother Kelby are several years older than Leilani, but they got along and had a great time together. Belen and Kelby are old enough and responsible enough that we let Leilani run off with them–they mainly ran back and forth between the cabins and the dining hall. After dinner, Belen and Kelby came to our cabin to read Leilani a good night story.

Saturday was the one sunny day in the middle of a lot of rainy days. So it was lucky that was our main day in the forest to hunt for mushrooms. But a lot of the mushrooms we found were water-logged.

We found a lot of Psydohydnum gelatinosum or cat’s toungue, Leilani’s favorite mushroom (in German Eispilz) because this is the only kind that Andy is good at finding. Her mushroom preference goes by color: white, yellow, brown, and if it is black it needs to be well hidden.

We climbed a steep hill, Leilani panted a lot less than some of the adults…

Trametes versicolor or Turkey Tail

Kelby and Belen helped Leilani to climb another hill, the big kid’s “skied” down, but Leilani climbed down carefully.

We managed to find enough mushrooms to make a nice dish for the potluck, among it a big Matsutake (a delicious and prized mushroom which I didn’t even recognize, I just picked it to be identified, because it was pretty and the foray leader was close by…)

The last day was too rainy to go much mushroom picking, but we still tried… Leilani gave up after 30 minutes, and I did 20 more in the rain (which doubled the take-home mushrooms). So we visited the coast a bit. This is near where we stayed in Albion, Highway 1 crosses the river valley on this big old bridge.

We had a nice lunch in Mendecino, a cute little town on a beautiful coastline. It was pouring rain and Leilani had the great idea to find a place with “fish and chips.” The restaurant had a great view of the coast, and the rain on the windows just added to the ambiance:

Please take my photo (with the doily):

Leilani is more and more asking us to take pictures. Not only of her, but of anything she finds interesting. After all, that is what the parents do all the time.

I got a big Fairy Tale book. That’s (almost) all I have been reading to Leilani for the past 3 weeks or so, and they are not at all Disney-like fairytales. I struggled with it for a while. On the surface they are more often horrible than beautiful, and not age appropriate, but I believe there is more meaning in them, they are messages from the common subconscious to a deep, dark part of the soul, the part of us that dreams, and can decipher dreams as well. Children have a much easier access to this realm of dreams and symbols, than most adults, at least Leilani does, but they are useful for adults to “play” with as well.

For example: Snow-White and Rose-Red inspired a forgiveness meditation (read the tale first if you don’t know it, otherwise it’s hard to follow): In it I have a friend who has been turned into a bear by an evil dwarf. I find a dwarf who is caught with his beard trapped, I free him but bring him to my friend the bear to ask if that is the evil dwarf. He does not answer, but kills and eats the dwarf. I am horrified, about killing and also about eating the dwarf, but then realize that’s what bears do, and that the dwarf had deserved it by creating the bear, and that I do not need to interfere and wholeheartedly forgive the bear (and the dwarf). In this moment the bear turns back into a prince.

The Juniper Tree is one of the brutal ones. Leilani just had me reread this after just 3 days, usually she does not want them repeated, she seems to be on a quest to hear them all… but she had a dark day, one was Godfather Death, and one the Juniper Tree . Anyway… when I read it originally the part where the stepmother decapitated the boy upset me. I can read a few lines ahead of what I read aloud so I stopped before she heard it and said it was too bad (but from the twists in the story it is already clear that something awful will happen). She asked me to silently read the end! OK, I did and she asked if the boy was OK at the end, and I answered yes. Read, PLEEEASE!!!!! I read it, she shuddered when the boy was killed, eaten, and when he came back as a bird and killed his stepmother with a millstone Leilani said splat and laughed. I was horrified, even more by her reaction than by the story… but to her it was just a fairy tale, just the way things go in fairyales. She turned around fell asleep, and had no bad dreams, or the need for the light on, and did not come into our bed either. The next day she pulled herself up on the windowsill and stuck her head out the open window and I yelled at her to get down right away – she looked at me like I had lost my mind, but came down immediately – “Why are you so nervous mommy?” “Well, I read a bad fairytale yesterday… ” “You know, I think you need to read it once more…” I did not really need to hear that from a 4 year old.

I didn’t do much editing on the movie… but at least I cut it.

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