Hello Kristin and Alana,
Mo and I have been very busy during the break, but not particularly so with mushroom work. Mo has spent a week in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area camping with us, I’ve worked a little bit with him on quail, I’ve opportunistically put him on a covey of wild grouse, and he’s accompanied me on several mushroom hunts in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Things here were setting up for a great season for summer mushrooms in my area, but then we hit a dry spell and the early flush of chanterelles and boletes (mostly kings and scaber stalks) shut down. Rain this past weekend should get things going again.
I had a chance to get out in the field for some black trumpets, and it was the same story–an early flush that all but shut down. We did find a reasonable amount of trumpets, though, and I had my first chance to start working with Mo using fresh shrooms instead of last year’s dried. Definitely a transition, but Mo seemed to quickly generalize–or more likely, add fresh trumpet scent to his library. I worked with him a bit during the break on fairly simple outdoor box hides, and I’ve also eliminated the boxes and hid targets in stainless steel tea balls. Mo seems very ready for the upcoming course.