Hi,
I live in Northwest Montana and am very active with my family outdoors, at least on the weekends. I have lived all over the country and was raised with a respect for nature. Growing up we hunted and fished as much as we could, we did not buy meat most of the year. We would often forage berries and occasionally other plants like wild onions/garlic but, we stayed away from fungi.
I hunted for morels a few times in high school, living in Kansas, but never found enough for a meal. It wasn't until I moved up here that I had much interest in mushrooms. Most hunt and fish here and almost everyone hunts morels in the spring and huckleberries in the fall. My family and I found huckleberries easily but the brown cones have eluded us for three years now. We have found an amazing array of other mushrooms so I picked up a very good field manual and have identified a number of edibles, at first it was for fun but after finally eating some, I am now addicted.
I have a couple of problems getting into this right now. First, I can't find anyone around who shares the same interest, everybody I talk to thinks you die or get high if you eat anything but a morel. Second, the book I have is great, All That the Rain Promises and More... but I have been finding a whole lot of mushrooms that aren't in the book. And Lastly, I'm colorblind (red-green color deficient) this makes it a little difficult to identify spore colors by myself - some reds, purples, browns, greens, and tans are hard to distinguished.
Thanks for having me.