Poison Mushrooms

Yesterday I posted about hunting fall mushrooms, the reason that we got interested in hunting them was because of a mushroom incident that happened to our Pastor.

He recently took his little dog out for her morning walk in the yard when she grabbed up something white in her mouth in a playful way. He realized that it was a mushroom and yelled at her to drop it, she did drop it but I guess she didn't drop it quick enough, the damage was already done.

Within 15 minutes she was vomiting and then the bloody diarrhea began. He rushed her to the Vet. They immediately started an IV when he walked through the door with her, she was obviously dying.

They managed to save her life but she certainly would have died if he had not seen her pick the mushroom up and realized how serious the situation was. They later identified the mushroom on the Vet's computer. She was at the Vet's office for a week and doesn't seem to have any long term affects from her experience at this time.

The Vet was concerned that with the rainy weather that we have had this year, these mushrooms are in everyone's yard. He said that it is rare that pet owners actually see their pets eat or play with the mushroom or toadstool. Most of the time people don't know what makes their dogs sick or why they just get sick and die suddenly.

I am not a mushroom expert, so I won't try to educate anyone here on my blog but it would probably be a good idea to do a little mushroom research to familiarize yourself with some of the things that you commonly see in your area. There are some mushrooms that are only mildly toxic and others that are deadly.

As a matter of fact, one of the spring mushrooms that I have enjoyed from the time I was a child is mildly toxic. You would have to eat a lot of them to make you sick. But some of the summer and fall mushrooms that I have never thought about eating are said to be safe and delicious. I have tried eating giant puffballs that grow like pumpkins here in the fall but didn't think that they tasted all that great.

Stalking and More

We have gone from getting 4 or 5 eggs a day down to one. My little flock is free ranging farther and farther away from home and I don't know where they are hiding their eggs. We hunted everywhere we could think to look this evening and couldn't find anything. So I guess I will have to get up with the Chickens in the morning and stealthily follow their every move until I crack this case.

I finally got my home permanent last night, it took me from 10:00 until midnight to curl it myself with my husband curling the ones on the lower back of my head. I had asked him to help me and being the wonderful man that he is, he reluctantly agreed. He did end up going to bed before I got it all curled and so, I had to wake him up to add the curling solution and the neutralizer to my head. He did a great job but I hadn't had a perm since I was a kid and I had forgotten how toxic the fumes are or they are much worse than they used to be. Anyway he did complain bitterly about the smell and I thought that I wasn't going to survive, I just couldn't breath and my eyes and throat were on fire, plus I got a small burn on my forehead. Today I look suspiciously, like a male lion.

I talked to a friend today who had sold some horses on contract two months ago. The payments weren't made so she went to pick them up and they were starved, one of them died when she got it home and she couldn't even find one of them, so she assumed that it had already died. This is sad when so many people had hay in their barns this winter and held onto it in order to get as much out of it as possible. Tomorrow they are cleaning out their barns and auctioning it off at the Springville Feeder Auction. Too late for some horses in the area. My husband had said all along that there was plenty of hay out there, it was just panic, too much talk and then greed that caused all of the problems this winter.