I was biking through Portland’s Old Town and I guess someone put 2 and 2 together and thought this would be a funny visual gag. I guess it makes sense if you’re very very high. What waste of good shiitake mushrooms.
Who the hell shiitakes a portapotty? …it is kind of funny though.
Portland is a very strange place.
Taking a moment to showcase some of the random mushrooms and frilly things I’ve seen on my walks around downtown Portland. Here are some lovely splitgill mushrooms at tanner springs park.
More splitgills on another log in the same place.
Holy cow! All of Portland’s Pearl District is a hotbed for splitgill mushooms. I wonder if these fungi traveled up the road on the breeze from the park. Let’s go see some frilly things on Naito…
Found these funky guys growing under a tree near some apartments.
Oh hey, there’s that hairy bracket I made that live culture from. I think it wound up in a terrarium project. It’s a little polypore that grows fuzzy like a little animal.
More trametes, but these ones are actually in Beaverton.
Some of Portland waterfront’s lovely spring time cherry blossoms. There’s about a week window every year where you can see these in bloom. They’re lovely.
Oh so frilly!
A nice water lily at Tanner Springs Park in Portland Oregon
Sancho on the left, Chiquis on the right. They’re my indoor plant buddies. I got them from an artist booth at Portland Saturday Market called El Interior. I love how colorful their works are and was super excited to see these planters, buying them soon as they went on display. Chiquis used to have a string of pearls plant but it died and it has since gone through many plant style changes. Sancho on the other hand, has had the same plant since I got him. (they were purchased some months apart)
Wow Chiquis, who is your little friend? Does it make you happy? You make me happy. 🙂
Around this time last year I’d picked up an aloe plant from the grocery store one trip with a neighbor. I kept it alive and it grew quickly, I had to switch it’s pot twice before this one. It’s seems happy and is now having pups!
“Hello!” This is how you get baby aloe. You just take really good care of your plant and wait. haha.
I carefully separated them from the mother plant by getting into the soil from the side with a spoon. I think I probably should have let them grow out a little more first as these little dudes were too tender to survive the heat storm. A couple of them did, but more than half died.
One of them made it into this small succulent bonsai like arrangement. The mother plant was taken to the farm, but even after moving again, I still have this box arrangement and the aloe is still very much alive. It has grown a couple inches since. :*)
“I’m praying you find the biggest mushroom ever! If you find it, you’ll share it right? RIGHT?!”
Happy Mushroom Hunting! 🙂
In early June of 2022, I had a couple of blocks of shiitake mushrooms that started to pin. Shiitake are interesting, they form this brown crust on the outside mycelium before mushrooms start poking through. I find it’s more aesthetically pleasing to grow them from logs…
Baby Shiitake Mushrooms! Woohoo! These guys started as live culture, then I made spawn and substrate. I had a couple of bags abort before this attempt so I was super happy to finally see some fruits!
These guys are out in the garden now so they can get more air. I wonder how big they’re going to get?
Grew kind of funny, usually shiitake mushrooms don’t grow in bunches like this. It probably had to do with their growing conditions back indoors. All the growing migrated to one spot of the bag even though I had the whole top open and put holes in the sides too. They kind of just do what they want. I’d preferred they’d pinned from the sides, but they all pinned on top. I’m just happy to be growing a mushroom. :*)
Oh hey, yeah that’s cool. That’s about a meal’s worth. I don’t think that I actually ate these guys. I took some samples and then put them in compost and in the garden grow box. I want to show you what happened with another grow block, maybe you can help me…
What the heck is this? Why did my shiitake mushrooms grow this way? Are those even mushrooms? They’re more like mutated mycelial masses. The block looked like it was going to fruit and then did this. No idea what’s going on! Mushrooms gonna mushroom I guess. Something similar happened to this grow –
Sir, you are confused. I wonder if maybe it had something to do with the molds present in that unit. Over the summer time my friend and her partner built a shiitake log set up in their backyard. I hope they get some mushrooms!!
By the time this post goes live, I’ll probably have already sold out as these were going to FanExpo in Feb and then to Portland Saturday Market. I intend on making more, and of various sizes and styles.
Secondhand shops and vintage fairs are great places to find mushroom related gifts like this seashell mushroom lamp.
I did not purchase the lamp, but I did purchase this cute piece here because it was only $10. I don’t have a lot of space where I live so I like smaller things.
Bestie found these cute Amanita Mushroom measuring spoons at a local thrift store.
Cool deck of mushroom cards that has unique art on every card depicting a different mushroom. I got these at Powell’s in Downtown Portland. I also picked up this cute mushroom note book in that area, but at Blick art supply up the street …
Closer to the holiday season, Powells start putting out more mushroom stuff. These ornaments are funny, mine are way cuter.
Cute mushroom gift bag made out of recycled paper.
They had both wrapping paper and tissue paper with this mushroom house gnome print on it.
And of course, if you visit me at Portland Saturday Market, you can find these lovely colorful plushy mushrooms.
What we’re trying to say here is that it’s very easy to find Mushroom gifts in Portland. They’re literally everywhere.
WHO ARE YOU?!?!?!?!
One day I was walking along the northwest waterfront to enjoy the smells of spring but when I got to the railroad crossing, I saw something kind of funny…
Um, what the heck are these mushrooms? What mushrooms grows like this then explodes (dries out) like a popcorn? What’s going on here??? I plugged it into iNaturalist and couldn’t find an ID. I looked online and couldn’t find the mushroom ID. I asked on Fungi related Reddits and still no ID!!! I’ve only been studying fungi going on my second year now, but generally I’ve been able to find mushroom IDs. This is the first one that has me stumped. Pun absolutely intended, as they were growing from there too.
They have a very gumdrop like quality to them, don’t they? What an odd little fungus.
Do you know this mans?! Can you please ID? If you can ID this mushroom, please let me know. Thank you!
A curious junko which had approached me on the way back. The animals in the pacific northwest are so friendly.
I recycle the go-bags from the cannabis stores by filling them with extra art and merch from the vending season. It livens up the neighborhood and gives me a reason to leave the studio to explore. Recently I’d heard of the Game of Shrooms which is a worldwide mushroom art scavenger hunt. Like heck I’d miss out on participating in that, that’s totally my jam.
Oh yeah, these packs were good ones. Each got a small painting, a hand sewn mask, 2 pixel arts, stickers, and little decorative mushrooms. Lucky lucky whoever found those! ;9
Mushrooms gone meta. I drew cute mushroom doodles on the packs including this one of a mushroom painting mushrooms.
Beep Beep, get your treat! This one was left by Skidmore fountain. The coffee truck is Luna Coffee. Try them if you ever visit our shop which is in the same general area.
Even though I was working all day and so couldn’t hunt mushroom art myself, by some other mushroomy miracle, one of my vendor friends found one! It was a little clay sitting mushroom headed dude with a colorful blended top. They gifted it to me. Definitely one of the highlights of this last season. You start working with mushrooms and straaaange and magical things start to happen. It’s wild. haha. I love them so mush.
Mushroomy Mel's Mushroom Blog 