Hello from the woods, all you readers! I’m pleased to report that I’m reporting live from the campground, and our camping trip is off to a wonderful start. The whole ride up, I was telling the kids all about how when I was young, I would spend the entire summer out in the countryside collecting pipinki mushrooms. Some people call them “honey mushrooms”, but the real name for them is pipinkis. I could spend all day just relaxing and eating pipinkis. But you have to be careful because the galerina mushroom looks like a pipinki. The only difference is it’s deadly. That’s why you have to take a spore print to tell them apart. That’s the only way. I may be getting older, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s how you tell a pipinki from a galerina. So if you’re going to start picking pipinkis, be sure to do your research first, because you don’t want to end up dying. Buy a book, talk to a ranger, do “whatever” (as the kids all say) you have to do to stay safe. It’s not all milk and honey and pipinkis out there.
After telling the kids all about pipinkis, they were ready to get picking. Before we even got the campsite set up, we set off, and by the end of the afternoon, we had collected enough pipinkis. I thought we had lost my grandniece Tricia and her friend Derek for a minute there because they got separated from the group, but not to worry—they showed up back at the campsite a little while later. Thought we lost you there for a second, Tricia and Derek! But it was all for the best, since my granddaughter Fiona found a chicken of the woods mushroom while she was looking for them. Now that’s different from a pipinki, but still delicious. We spent the evening feasting on pipinkis.
This was Fiona’s first campfire—that “day camp” she went to didn’t have one. When it was time for bed, Tricia and her three friends (C. J., Derek, and Jessica) retired to the trailer, and my grandchildren Fiona and Max, and myself (The Codger) retired to our tent. You see, the trailer can only sleep four, and since Tricia’s friends have been living in it back at my house, I didn’t think it would be right to kick them out just because we towed their residence to the campground. Plus, I hadn’t slept in a tent in over 25 years. Can you believe that? It had been a full 25 years!
Until next time!
Ahoy,
The Codger
From the desk of The Codger 