Our Story

Innoculation

It started out as a reconnection to Nature, my Nature, and our Nature.

In early 2020 the marquee of the AFS Cinema in Austin, TX, an indie-theatre near my office, read “Fantastic Fungi”. It drew me in and I spontaneously bought a ticket. I was the only one in the audience, perhaps because I was the only one who didn’t get the message a virus was about to shut the world down and draw us closer together. I was hooked immediately! I couldn’t believe what I just saw and learned. An entire universe I had previously paid little attention to. The next day the world shut down and my office announced remote work. I had no obligations in Austin, not even a lease, so I moved by to East Texas, into the tiny house I had built in years past and moved there almost a year prior to be close to my parents and sister while this pandemic blew through. It was the best decision I ever made!

While many people went stir-crazy in their homes or struggled with loneliness I was deep in the woods reconnecting with my inner child and the woods that raised me. I was looking at life with an entirely new perspective, focusing on the fungus of this world while also seeing the familiar towering trees, birds, bugs, squirrels, turtles, and deer of my childhood. I was on my hands and knees growing intimate with the keystone species I had no idea existed: fungi.

Symbiosis

I quickly recruited my sister, Lynsey, into the woods to join in the fun, and boy did WE HAVE FUN!! We frolicked through the fields, crouched under the brush, and picked our way through briars to find every new species we could. It was a blast. We learned about the life cycle of mushrooms, their habitat, and most of all - how to identify and eat the good ones while avoiding the bad ones. We were constantly sending pictures of new ones or good finds to each other. In fact, she scouted many of the places I still hunt today.

On the first hunt of what would become our “TOP SECRET SPOT”, just two feet into the woods, we found Lactarius indigo, a mushroom we would affectionately call “Blues”. This mushroom has a mesmerizing spiral pattern of light & dark blue lines on top, bruises green when touched, and bleeds blue when cut. In the mouth, it has a light lavender taste to it and we learned it is the perfect topping for banana nut bread!! Just a few feet from there she shrieked, “What is that?!?” Me, having read 7 books on the subject and spent months now studying my field guide knew exactly what it was… chanterelles. Right there in front of us, a mushroom I had only read legends about was there in these East Texas woods. I was astounded! From there we danced through the woods filling a very large basket with Chanterelles, Blues, and even Agaricus (my first wild mushroom to eat).

Side note: When I first ate that Agaricus campestris mushroom, I sent Lynsey pictures telling her what I thought it was but “if I ended up in the hospital these are pictures of the mushroom”. I couldn’t tell our mother because she would have gone into a nervous wreck. But my plan was solid because I knew Poison Control had a mushroom guru in Deep East Texas on speed dial. If I were to become sick he could easily identify the mushroom with the pictures I sent.

With that hunt, Lynsey and I were once again bonded. Prior to, we weren’t distant but we weren’t close either. I had moved away for college immediately after high school, went straight to NYC after that, then moved to south Texas and then to Austin all for work while she lived near my parents and was doing her own thing. We had talked but not about anything real. But in the woods, we talked about real things. The joy of finding any fungus and admiring the beauty of Nature gave each of us the space we needed to talk about each of our own divorces, her struggles with her current marriage, our childhood, planning families of our own, and how we could lean on each other in the future. We rekindled our siblinghood and I rediscovered how much she loved me and how much I loved her. We told each other that. And it felt really good to say, “I love you.”

Flush

Little did we know we were coming into the season of what would become our favorite mushroom to hunt and eat, Lepiotas! The early fall of that year had great rainfall and massive explosions of Lepiota. One drizzly morning I asked if she wanted to go and within a few minutes she was out her door in shorts, mud boots, and a tank top (her preferred fashion). In my raincoat and boots, I strolled down the road side-by-side with Lynsey to our neighbor’s pasture where we were overwhelmed with the haul. It seemed like every step we took we saw a new patch of them. At one moment, at the very same time, we both locked eyes on a massive cap across the field and simultaneously said, “WOW!”. We both ran over to see this mushroom. Jaws gapping open we looked it up and down admiring the sheer size of the fleshy cap. She placed her wedding band on for a size comparison -as we always took pictures. We only stopped hunting because we had no more room in our basket! Mushrooms were falling out with each step as she followed me home saving each one saying, “Dropped one. Dropped another. Another.” It was an incredible haul. When we got back to the house I sautéed a few up and she went bananas about it! Dipping them in - her favorite - ranch dressing. She ended up pairing them with Best Maid dill pickles and somehow convinced our mother to try the same combination. We had bags and bags and bags of dried Lepiotas and fresh ones for days!

Drought

That big Lepiota hunt would end up being our last hunt together. Just a few days later, on a Friday morning, Oct 2nd, 2020, Lynsey was in a head-on collision that took her life as well as the other driver. At the top of a hill, she met an oncoming car in her lane. She had no time to react and in an instant, she was gone. That morning I was preparing for my daily walk when I received a call telling me I needed to get to Athens, it was about Lynsey, she was in a car wreck. It seemed worrying but I had faith. I took my walk before I left and while I was out I saw a withering Lepiota. I knelt beside it connecting with Nature, Lynsey - God, praying for her. But I knew. My family was trying to shield me and make sure I drove safely and sanely on the 45-minute voyage to the hospital. When I arrived my Dad met me in the parking lot barely able to mutter, “She didn’t make it.” Baffled I hugged him and then slowly made my way into the hospital where my sister lay so peacefully with my mother, grandmother, and her best friend sobbing over her. She was still warm. Peaceful. At ease. But gone.

The story goes on from here but for now, I started to learn to grow mushrooms as a way to inspire myself and my parents to get us up and going again to have something to live for. It worked and it brought us closer together. More to come.