Rain brought in some mushrooms :)

There are two important factors to having good mushrooms growing in the forests. One factor is having it rain, and the other is for the weather to be warm enough with some sun. Now we had it rain for a few days and a little bit of warmth, but now it is pretty cold outside all day and night. So for the one day that it was good enough conditions, we went out into the forest and found some mushrooms. It was really quite odd though, and only by accident that we even went looking. you see it has been very cold here and we haven't been seeing even many of the bad mushrooms outside, let alone the good edible ones. I was out in the forest the other day and while throwing some old bread under one of the pine trees for the birds, I noticed a large Birch Bolete, so we went hunting :) As we wandered through the woods we found some more Birch Boletes and some Orange Birch Boletes and one or two Chanterelles. Here is a picture of an Orange Birch Bolete that we found.

As you can see from the picture above, the Orange Birch Bolete has an orangeish-redish kind of cap as opposed to the tan or brown cap for the regular Birch Bolete. Magda made an awesome mushroom soup out of what we found as usual :) *Correction Magda sauteed mushrooms, it wasn't a soup because she didn't add any water. I have different tastes than her in mushrooms, and when it comes to mushroom soup I just tend to like the mushrooms that make the soup more crunchy, and the Birch Boletes do that. When we are out mushroom hunting we will often find many inedible mushrooms, and some that are edible that we will have to identify, so we walk past them. We might pick one on occasion to bring home and identify, and we might just take a picture because a mushroom looks cool. The following little mushroom we find sometimes when we are out hunting. It is small, and white, and translucent, and pretty cool. I doubt it is edible but we always like seeing them in the woods. 

This was probably the last time we will go out mushroom hunting this year. The rain has moved in, and the ground is wet, but it is just too cold outside to allow for any good mushroom growth. Magda went out looking today and did not find anything to be proud of. I will definitely be missing the edible bounty when I am out on my walks, but the change in scenery always allows for some good photography. I am looking forward to taking some pictures of birch trees without their leaves and the snow when it starts to fall. Lydia loves the snow and is always asking "When will the snow come, and my birthday?!" Her birthday is December 23rd. Lydia's school is not very far from our house, maybe a mile or a mile and a half. We have promised her that when the snow starts to fall and the ground gets covered a little bit I will take her to school on her sled. This will be a lot of fun for her, and a little bit of a 'Rocky 4' kind of workout for me :) Well off to bed now so good night :) or of course good morning :).

IKEA is the Arch Nemesis for Mila The Destroyer

I explained in a past blog that we are always searching for that perfect piece of furniture, but that sometimes we just have to settle for what will help us out at the moment, and this is it. Mila The Destroyer is full of mischief and just cannot be watched and yelled at 24/7, so you just have to pick your battles. We settled for this piece from IKEA because it allows for her to get to some of the stuff on the bottom levels and still allows for us to keep some things out of her reach and path of destruction. If you look closely at the the small stack ontop of the structure in the upper left hand corner you can see a stack of wood block puzzles. Now the puzzles are/will be fun to play with her as she develops a little bit more, but for now they are fun for her to dump on the ground and run away. In about the middle of the picture you can also see a pink basket full of foam puzzle pieces which she would also normally dump and run, or break apart if together and run away, but she has not been messing with this basket at all :) We also picked up a few other items for her to play with/on. 

The table which is next to Tickle Me Elmo has two chairs to go with it, but we decided to put them away for now because Mila was using them as her own personal house stools. Mila is of course an excellent climber, but she is also resourceful and will use other objects to boost her height and we just weren't thinking at the time we got the chairs. Now the storage box to the right is where we keep most of the plush toys and teddy bears out of sight. But The storage box rolls out and is definitely one of Mila's favorite things to empty and climb inside of. One thing that we have gained around the house by having more furniture, is a little more time delay before a mess happens, by forcing Mila to take the time and open a drawer or a cabinet before trashing the area. We are also pretty good at using our ears around the house listening to particular noises, the metal handles on some drawers and cabinets make heavy metal sounds and the scraping of a drawer opening are pretty pronounced. So when we hear something about to get trashed we can jump to action and tell Mila no, which sometimes works. :) Putting things out of reach and out of sight doesn't work as well as it used to, as Mila can climb well, and now she has a tendency to ask to be picked up so she can see what is not in view. Mila The Destroyer is pretty good at telling you she is upset or tired, as I mentioned her attacks before, but she is also pretty good at throwing tantrums. One of my favorite tantrums is what I have labeled 'The floor protest' in which she will drop to the floor screaming and pounding and thrashing for about a minute. Magda and I just laugh because we will take something away from her, and she will drop to the ground and we say "oh a floor protest" :). Well the little destroyer is taking a well deserved nap right now and I have to get back to some things, so good morning :)