Week 4

Porous Bodies

First and foremost, I would like to thank our guest lecturers for preparing such an amazing presentation and for inspiring us to become mushroom hunters through their storytelling soundwalk. However, I don’t know if I would like to call myself a mushroom ‘hunter’; instead, I would prefer the term mushroom ‘explorer’. The essay by Ursula K.

Mycological Musings

Over the weekend I was on Catalina island, fixing bikes in my bike shop at Emerald Bay. I planned to keep an eye out for fungi - particularly along this one trail where I remember they're usually being little stalks here and there. 

One afternoon I took a break from my work and headed over to hike up this hill and look around, but where I remember there always being fungal blooms there were none - though there were funnel spider webs which I never remembered seeing.

Rooted Amongst Others

The first thing I planned on doing, after having opened the recorded dialogue of course, was stamp my feet in my backyard, and inhale the spring breeze. I wanted to absorb the information my surrounding provided me, and react to its stimuli. It was a sunny afternoon, the birds were unironically chirping, and I could feel the sun on my face.  After having absorbed the vastness that is my background, I decided to explore the unknown, and ventured off. My background is quite sizable, and I often neglect both flora and fauna that inhabit it.

Seed to a Plant

My journey started looking for fungi as I was navigating the beautiful hills of Hill Country Texas. I soon came to realize recently we have been having nights that dropped below 70ºC, which around such temperatures the mushroom spores go into hibernation mode and don't grow. As I was listening to the "Sound Walk Audio", this flowered captured my gaze and interest.

Observation Walk

I went on my walk with my friend who is visiting me from Seattle. We listened to the recording and took pictures of the things we noticed. We tried to pay close attention to the items that reminded us of Fungi. When the recording started to play I found it annoying. There was a buzzing sound in the background and I did not like how it was telling me what to do. It just kept repeating “walk just walk” like it was trying to hypnotize me.

Mycelium Exploration

Over the weekend, I decided to go on a walk to a nearby hill and explore wild mushrooms. Unfortunately, the weather was dry and sunny, which is unsuitable for fungi to thrive. Therefore I decided to go to the supermarket for the mushroom hunt while listening to the “Sound Walk Audio.”

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