What! September 16th! Where did those two weeks go? Work, work, work is where the time went.

Okay it wasn't all work. I did have two days in a row on the labour day weekend. We did go for a walk in a local park with some intention on looking for mushrooms, but we didn't see much. There was a nice trail around this small pond though that made for a nice easy walk. 

We found some puff mushrooms that were beyond their eating stage, but when pressed little puffs of brown spores came out of the top. We also found a cauliflower mushroom that was sizeable. We took a sample home to do a better ID on it. I actually found a couple of black chanterelles, which I never thought I'd spot in the woods and didn't really know existed until I started to identify it. One I found looked a bit past its prime and the other one was tiny so I left it alone. They are supposed to be quite good though.

I love the west coast trees. Of course this whole area was heavily logged. Many of the stumps left behind still have the springboard markings in them. This is where slots were cut out of the lower trunk and a springboard was set up so the loggers could stand on them and cut away with their axes.

This side of the park is quite nice because it's a little less travelled than the beach side of the park. It would make a nice running trail actually. 

Last weekend we were planning on going to P's for a little mushroom walk (he's more of a pro and I want to learn what I can from him), but he called to say that the forests were still pretty dry. The summer was so dry, and our fall hasn't produced much rain either. So we decided to delay our trip for another week. Then hopefully he'll come to the mainland to poke around here. We've probably had a little more rain than Nanaimo.

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What else have I been doing?
Of course I'm running again. It's very frustrating having to take a week off. I feel like I've lost some of my momentum, but I'm slowly gaining that back.

I had a great run along the inlet one evening after work. I ran the trail the whole way. It was sunny and not too warm; the weather was perfect running weather. That run really motivated me. Tonight I ran near the inlet, but had one of those sluggish runs. My legs felt heavy and I could never get into a groove. Sometimes it's just tougher. I'll see how it goes Friday on my long run.

I need to keep running because with the feeling of fall in the air, I've been baking. I've been baking cookies, muffins,  and even a cake (for db's birthday).

These are the lemon poppyseed muffins I made. They turned out beautifully. What is it about lemon and poppyseed that goes together so well?