Honestly, I have no real knowledge about mushroom allergies. But, most allergies are triggered by a protein in the allergenic substance - the protein is the allergen. If it were me I would avoid contact with the soil as I would suspect it of possibly containing the protein/allergen. The likelihood is probably low, but there is some level of risk. The food issue is not uptake (I don't know of plants taking in soil bound proteins), but if the offending allergen is soil resident then there is a risk of food contamination from soil contact. The greatest risk would most probably be with root vegetables, then low-growing leafy stuff (lettuce, spinach, etc.), then the higher growing fruiting stuff (peppers, tomatoes). If the produce was well washed I would guess that it wouldn't be a problem, but it's a guess. edit - meant to add. you sure are lucky to have a source of SMS. I used to live about 15 miles from a major mushroom center, and the spent stuff is incredibly good compost. This post was edited by TXEB on Tue, Apr 23, 13 at 19:10

We have the opposite end of this - when we bought the house, we didn't notice the large gash (a long-ago healed lightning gash) in the ENORMOUS pine tree that's just barely on our side of the property line. A couple years ago, the house next door sold, and the new neighbors freaked out. The gash faces them, so they noticed it. They asked us to cut the tree down. Problem is, it would take a crane to get the thing out - it's easily 20-30+++ feet above the roofs of the houses. To get in there, the crane would have to drive over our leach field, which would crush the entire leach field and require replacing the field afterwards. I shudder to think of the bill. Frankly, the tree looks healthy to me. It's still vigorous and doesn't drop branches any more than other trees around. To be safe, I had a tree guy come by. He told me he thinks it will stil be here for years and years, and all the above about the crane. He only knew of one person around who *might* be able to handle the work. I should have asked him if he'd write all that down so we don't look negligent, but I didn't think to, because I really don't think anything will happen. All our houses nestle in the woods. We're the type to figure out how to live in harmony with that. The neighbors let a logger in last summer to clear-cut their entire yard. (I think they're not into living in the woods.) When they had the logger in there last year, I tried asking the logger & them to go the last bit and get the tree, but the logger would never discuss it with me. (I'm not sure he had the equipment, given that it's between both houses.) And the neighbors didn't try and help solve the problem. If they wanted it solved that badly, that would have been the time to do it - we could have gotten a crane in through their clear-cut yard, which was obviously torn up already. We would have been happy to give them permission at that time to get it cut down on their own. We don't have the huge amount of money sitting around that it would take to get the thing out, and an expert's told me it's just fine. They're not actively hostile or anything, but I do know they think we should get it taken care of. What do you do in a situation like this?

lol, no problem. The other tidbit I always through out when talking about molds and fungus in general is that bleach is not rated to kill mold or fungus. It bothers me to no end that there are companies that market their bleach based products as such but it simply isn't effective. There's no doubt that you'll hurt it, all living things are susceptible to toxic salts - bleach is ultimately just a salt - but it doesn't necessarily kill it. Most of the time it just bleaches out the color of the spores along with the elbow-grease you're providing. When I used to grow mushrooms I would always get major infestations of trichoderma (forest-green mold) in my equipment simply because trichoderma is everywhere. Hell it, along with a half a dozen other relatively harmless molds (the blue-green penicillium molds, black pin molds, etc.) are in your loaf of bread right now, having drifted on to the bread as soon as it came out of the oven at the bakery. Rather than using - ineffectively - bleach to try to clean out the equipment I would use a 12% Hydrogen Peroxide. You can buy it at that strength from beauty supply stores or you can order 35% H2O2 - technical grade or also called "food grade" - from farm supply stores as well as online - although shipping costs an arm and a leg because at 35% H2O2 requires a hazmat license to ship. The reason 35% H2O2 is called food grade is because that is what is used to clean food-processing equipment at large plants. After washing the "dishes" so to speak, employees spray a fine mist of the 35% H2O2 over all the equipment. Kills all bacterial and fungal microbes instantly as well as destroys their spores and endospores in the process. However, because it's such an unstable molecule, any type of light - sunlight, fluorescent lights, etc. cause it to break down into pure water and pure oxygen. H2O2 + Light Source = H2O + O (Oxygen) :shrug: -- told you I was geeky on mycology.

Wow, I'm glad your dogs are okay. And terribly sorry for Shelley's dog that was not. We have lots of toads here, even though we are in a dry climate. They tend to migrate around, so keep your eyes peeled for more. My personal experience has been that there will be years when you see very few toad, and years when it seems like they are everywhere. That might just be because of our climate though. About 10 years ago our dog discovered the mushrooms that grow in the lawn certain times of the year when conditions are right. It took us a couple of days to figure out what she was doing. As soon as we realized, we would go out first thing every morning and clear the yard of mushrooms. Still, she would go out and immediately begin to root around in the yard for mushrooms. Despite making her sick, they must have also given her some kind of high?