http://www.mushroompeople.com/how-to-cultivate-mushrooms-in-natural-logs/ I am getting ready to give it a go, it takes 9 months before they will produce so I am thinking of getting a ready to fruit kit of 2 just to maybe get familiar with the mushroom. I would like to start them as soon as possible but they say on their site to only use trees with no leaves so I assume that means wait until the late fall

Marcia, Please help me find out what kind of snake I came across today. While I was at the local dog park (near Orlando) I came across a yellow with black stripes snake. It looked to be between 3.5-4 feet long and did not appear at first glance (that was all I gave it out of fear) to be shiny. I was about 3 feet from it and didn't know it until my dog almost stepped on it. She obviously didn't see it either. The snake seemed a pit peeved about the whole thing but it decided not to attack and to slowly slither towards ME to get away from my dog. Needless to say, I took off in a different direction real quick and hollered for my dog to follow. I am not like you or others on this site. I am not a fan of snakes and am extremely afraid of them. Although, I don't mind the black racers that seem to have taken up permanent residence in MY back yard and they love to procreate often (or so it seems). I have seen a lot less field rats since the racers moved in and that makes me very happy. Anyway, can you help me figure out what this snake was? I have spent hours and hours online tonight trying to find it and just can't seem to find anything that looks like it. I am guessing that it is not dangerous to me or my dogs??? I am scared to take my dogs back through those woods that they so dearly love. As soon as I told them, "No more woods until the snakes are gone again," they "told" me to find it if it was dangerous or not and if it isn't that they want to go back again. So that is mostly why I am asking you for your help. We all love the walks but I am afraid of the snakes. Please help me feel safer about going back. Thanks in advance for your help.

That sounds like a great place, and very nice people, Beachlily. I bet they'd love to hear from you. There's a couple of videos out there (at least) showing some techniques to making risotto. One is by Mario Batali, (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/dining/02mini.html?_r=1) and he's making asparagus risotto. He doesn't actually stir all that much. The other is Tom Colicceo, making roasted tomato risotto. I made that the other night, and it was quite good. In this video he shows his way of telling when the risotto is done. The only change I made to his recipe was to use vegetable broth. I'll put a link to that video below, but I don't know how to do more than one link, so I just included the address for the Batali video above. ) (By the way, I stumbled across that website when I did a search for tomato risotto [I have an abundance of tomatoes right now]. It looks like a pretty cool website, but I haven't had or taken the time to explore it further.) Sally

For what it's worth ... my mycology professors did not do any mushroom hunting outside the grocery store. When the experts won't do it, the amateurs should stay out of there. The problem is that - with a few exceptions - there are so many look-alikes and look-almost-alikes out there that you need to pick them in the right stage of development and look at exactly the right part of the mushroom or tell poisonous from non-poisonous.