Those ticks. They are always bad this time of year, it must be their hatching time. We found some mushrooms too and some ticks. I actually don't like to eat them, the mushrooms that is. (I know, I know) but I sure like to hunt them. It's like easter for grown-ups...

You might find some good information on the NJ Mycological Association's website - link below. Here is a link that might be useful: NJ Mycological Association

Actually, Dswan, I kill wildlife fairly often. Only in the appropriate season and only what I eat...and I don't feel bad at all about it. But I can sympathize about the snake...or any other critter that gets killed for no good reason at all. I've sadly run into enough boneheads over the years (and many aren't hillbillys...not sure if we technically can legally call them "hillbillys" in Canada...it may be like "champagne" is only rightfully applied to certain wines produced in the appropriate districts in France..perhaps we can call them "sub-alpine oriented peoples" ) who seem to feel that the only appropriate response to any critter on their property is extermination. I have a skunk that lives under my front verandah...not so much lives but loiters. In the several years that it's been resident, I've smelled it only once, and my olfactory abilities are finely honed. I've enjoyed watching the old girl raise litter after litter of handsome young skunks. A visiting relative was shocked by my entire family's nonchalance over the skunks. I told him that we learned to accept them and their odd habits, in much the same way my family came to accept him. Still, on his own little slice of rural bliss, he routinely dispatches any and all skunks, coons, and squirrels as they are "vermin". I find this appalling. What's worse is that he is an extremely civilized, well read and thoughtful individual...and unless Manchester, UK qualifies as part of Appalachia, I'm doubting his hillbilliness. Every day I hear complaints about Canada geese, cormorants, and sundry other birds and mammals. More and more, these complaints are coming from retirees and yuppies, refugees from the urban sprawl of Toronto or Ottawa. I hear comments about control and culling, and how the environment is "out of whack" Personally I'd like to see the exposion of these minivan driving Homo sapiens brought under some sort of control..they've taken to building their large bulky homes in every corner of our once proudly rural township...they clutter our roads and insist on trying to recreate the exact situations they left behind...if anyone has any suggestions I'm open.

Iowa girl 2006, How do they feel about you walking across their lawn and picking their flowers? There's a difference? Folks used to feel that it was O.K. to raid our orchard, beside a sideroad, about 8 miles from town. Dad told them that it wasn't ... and when he asked them about the comparison relative to the flowers, many of them got rather huffy. Some didn't even see the legitimacy of the comparison! He found some morels in that orchard, once, and we had them in soup, sort of like oyster soup, which we found quite enjoyable, if I remember correctly - it was about 65 years or more ago. They are rather a rare delicacy, in this area, I think. ole joyful