Autumn Routine 2014, Chores, Deer Scouting, Grouse and Mushrooms

The first weekend of October 2014 I spent tying up some odds and ends chores around the house and getting ready for modern firearm deer season which runs the last three weekends of October. I was still itching to do another hike but there was a lot of stuff that I had let slide over the summer that needed attention.

I fixed mom’s clothesline pulleys and replaced a ¾ inch valve for the cow water. I had already moved the cows to the home pasture for the winter so I pulled the pump from the Stump Farm. We, Sacha and the kids and I, made a trip to Everson to pick up a plum tree. There was some fence that needed to be fixed at the home pasture so I worked on that, finishing it during the week after work.

Sunday morning I sighted my rifle in. I always try to do that before going hunting so I know where the rifle is shooting, which makes it more likely that I won’t cause any needless suffering if I should happen to see and shoot a deer. I covered this pretty well last year in my post (End of Hiking Season, Scouting for Deer, Grouse and Mushrooms).

Sunday afternoon I worked on the fence and then took off to do a little grouse hunting and deer scouting. I will have a lot less time for deer scouting this year than I did last year. This often means it is harder to get a deer because you don’t have a good handle on where the deer are spending most of their time. I have seen a lot of deer around in the valley, mostly does and this year’s fawns which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on if the bucks show up while it is still hunting season. A longer deer hunting season isn’t all bad either. That means more time spent poking around and learning things. Of course, I also have a lot of chores pending as well as family responsibilities.

I also kept an eye out for mushrooms. The wetter autumn weather is a prime time for them. Some are edible, others aren't and some are deadly poisonous. Many mushrooms have interesting shapes and colors, edible or not. Edibility is a bonus. Sacha likes chanterelles. She didn’t want to try any last year because she was pregnant. The chanterelles have been up for about a month now. I picked a small batch earlier. Both Sacha and I like mushroom hunting though Sacha does the eating. It remains to be seen where the kids will stand on the subject. Some of my family is allergic to mushrooms so they are a dietary item to be introduced to the kids with great care. The lobster mushrooms have been up for a while now too, though these are a little sketchier as far as eating whether you are allergic to mushrooms or not.

A lot of this might seem like a repeat of last year’s activities and, in a sense, it is. Many people have their seasonal routines. Seasons determine availability of many resources and the optimal time for harvest. So you end up doing many of the same things at about the same time of year, year after year.

Seasons roughly follow the calendars we have invented to mark them but they are not bound by any artificial calendar. The wild blackberries are ready usually starting in early July and they might last until early August at higher elevations. You usually do hay, or the first cutting in early July. The chanterelles are up usually sometime in September. At about the same time, the coho or silver salmon or silver salmon are in the river, following the Chinook runs earlier in the summer. The routines of many people in this area at this time revolve around fishing for coho salmon or chanterelles. Etc., etc., etc.

No year is ever exactly the same. Weather; wetter, drier, hotter colder, effects everything. There was a bumper crop of blueberries and apples this year. The leaves seem to be falling off the trees a week or two earlier than usual this year but within the range of what I would consider “normal”.

So, while everything is kind of the same so far as it falls within a general season, the seasons vary, sometimes greatly, from year to year. And it can vary from site to site or even by individual plants or animals. As I mentioned, there was a bumper crop of apples this year but I noticed that a neighbor’s tree that was loaded last year seemed to have a rather small crop this year. And I am sure that there were some patches of blueberries that didn’t produce very well this year. These might be the plants that produce in off years though.

Someone passing through an area for a short time might get the impression that the conditions in that place remain the same year to year based on the experience of a relatively short period of time, weeks, months or even a year or two. Someone who spent the winter of 1995/1996 or 2007/2008 when it snowed many feet in the Marblemount area might say that it snows a lot there while in the winters previous to the heavy snow winters and the winters after the heavy snow winters, there was relatively little snow in the area.

I don’t know how many times I have heard broad statements that things are a certain way in a certain place based on very short experience. I have uttered some of these statements myself. But you would have to live in a place, here, or anywhere for that matter, many years to figure out what is an average or “normal” season. Even then, it is hard to keep everything straight as far as what kind of season happened in what year unless you write it down. The examples I gave above about the winters may be a year or two off because I didn’t write them down.

Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius).

Russula spp., a host for the lobster mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum)

Lobster mushroom. The parasitic (or apparently parasitic)  lobster mushroom has grown on, and engulfed, the gills and cap of a Russula. 

At the risk of going overboard on the Russula, lobster mushroom relationship, I have included this photo of a Russula (on the left) that is not infested with lobster mushroom and one (on the right) that is. They are growing in close proximity and one wonders how the process of infestation occurs, whether it has to happen at a specific time during the  fruiting stage (mushroom) of the host or whether it attacks the underground mycelium that actually constitutes the bulk of the host organism. Maybe someone knows. I don't and my reference material doesn't say. If the lobster mushroom only infests the fruiting body of the host, then the Russula to the left would be apparently free and clear.

Cracked top bolete (Boletus chrysenteron). Boletes have tubes rather than gills for releasing spores underneath the cap.  

Mushrooms unknown to me. I think these might be scaly pholiota (Pholiota squarrosa) These are probably a well known species to those who are familiar with mushrooms. I am no expert. I have been seeing a lot of this species of mushroom around this year. I would not recommend eating any mushroom if you don't know for sure what it is. I  don't eat mushrooms, not because I am paranoid but because I don't really like their taste or texture.  I do love hunting them though and I do know people who like them. 

Fence with two broken rails that I have removed. 

I replaced the old boards that were the previous rails with Douglas-fir poles. 

My first try at sighting my rifle. I like to check every year to make sure that my rifle sights are still set properly and to practice a little shooting. This is in the interest of making sure I don't botch a shot and cause undue suffering. This group was at one hundred yards. The target I was aiming at is to the left. There is a quarter to the right to give a sense of scale. Here I was having trouble getting a good rest for my rifle. The rifle range that I used to use was abruptly closed so I had to use a makeshift system of bundles of padding on the hood of my pickup as a rest for my rifle and was having problems holding the rifle steady. 

This is the next target. I have modified my rest by adding a block of wood and was able to stabilize my aim enough to shoot a good, fairly tight group. The last group I shot is the cluster of holes below the target. This tells me that my sights are set to shoot an inch or two low at one hundred yards. 

Last target after adjusting the elevation on my sights. This should be good enough for most of the shots I am liable to be presented with, assuming I don't mess up and pull the shot which is what happened with the hole to the upper left, well away from the target. 

Deer browse on red flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum).

Deer browse on fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium). This is a small plant. I don't see a lot of browse on fireweed once it gets big and tall. At this point, the fireweed or at least its stems are very fibrous and probably not as palatable. Fibers from large fireweed plants make very good cordage or rope.  

Deer bed. This bed hasn't been used in several weeks probably but it does indicate that deer are still using this area. 

Deer track a week or two old. The edges of this track are no longer sharply defined and you can see where the larger pebbles have been eroded out of the fine material that was pressed down around them by the weight of the deer when the track was made. Also the small plants in the track show no signs of being crushed so they have germinated since the track was made. 

Mount Shuksan. The photo was taken while I was out scouting. 

Sauk Mountain with Eldorado in the background. 

Sauk Mountain. 

This is one of three deer I almost ran over less than a mile from home. It is not uncommon to go out hunting or looking for sign all day long at some distant place only to have your quarry turn up under your nose. This deer is a doe, as were here companions so they would have not been legal to harvest with a modern firearm which is what I hunt with.  

Blue grouse (Dendragopus obscurus). I got this grouse at about 4000 feet. It's crop was filled with blueberries (Vaccinium spp) and ash berries (Sorbus sitchensis).

Ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus). For having a palette of colors ordinarily considered rather drab, brown, black and white, these birds, in my opinion are some of our most beautiful. This grouse had a crop full of snowberries (Symphoricarpos albus) which are quite poisonous to humans. Many birds and other animals have adaptations to deal with the poisons present in many plants that humans do not.