Scavenger Hunt Sunday--Books, Mushrooms and Dr Pepper

This week for the Scavenger Hunt I found a few of my favorite things to photograph. The prompts for today were book, mail, star, saturated and wall.

1. Book

If you were to come to my house looking for a book to read, I feel sure you would find one to your liking. My shelves contain books of nearly every genre and for every age group. This photo is just a small sampling of what you can choose from. My favorites growing up were mysteries, biographies, and pioneer books. The books I am more likely to pick up now are ones I can learn from. My most recent reads have been about writing. I do love historical fiction, though. What type of books do you like to read?

2. Mail

Mail was delivered through the Pony Express mail service via horseback from April of 1860 to October of 1861. During the eighteen months it was in operation, many great stories were told. I have always been fascinated by them. I began collecting books about the Pony Express around ten years ago. I have these eight books plus several more not pictured.

3. Star

Dr Pepper was my family's drink of choice for many years. Now I drink water almost exclusively. Although I don't drink Dr Pepper any more, I have an extensive collection of Dr Pepper memorabilia. I noticed this clock, made to commemorate our country's bicentennial, had a star for each of the original thirteen colonies.

4. Saturated

A few days ago, Joe and I found this tree saturated with oyster mushrooms. We have only found them high up on (usually dead) tree trunks. Often you can smell their fresh sweet scent before you see the fruit. They are considered choice eating but were already getting old, so we left them alone. Mushrooms are fun to hunt, even if you never eat any of them. Some varieties will make you very sick, so if you do decide to hunt some to eat, I would advise you to study them well and carry an identification book with you.

5. Wall

These wall mount pop bottle openers are a part of my Dr Pepper collection. They are used mostly for decoration today, since most pop bottles have twist off caps.

I hope you have enjoyed my post this week. It was a fun one for me. Thanks for stopping by. I would love for you to leave a comment and tell me what you thought of  my interpretations for the prompts: book, mail, star, saturated and wall. I am anxious to visit your posts to see what you found on your scavenger hunt. 

Today's post is linked to the scavenger hunt here:

Scavenger Hunt Sunday 6-9-14

The last few weeks I have been busy helping to organize a writers conference for the Fellowship of Christian Writers group of Tulsa. This was our first conference and we weren't sure what to expect from it. We had around two months to prepare after we made the decision to go ahead with it and set the date for May 31st. We were hoping to have 40 in attendance inspite of the short time we had to advertise.

I am happy to say it turned out better than we expected. We had 42 attendees and some great speakers for the workshops. Our conference bookstore was well stocked and well stocked. By the time I got a chance to take a picture of it, there weren't many books left. That's a good thing, right?

So now that you know why I have been absent so long, and have the pictures to prove it, I will make a feeble attempt to make up for lost time. We left a few days after the conference to get the grandkids for the summer. This weeks pictures came from one of our excursions with them in between thunderstorms.

1. Denim

The trails we walked around the lake today were not even close to dry. I was glad to have chosen denim jeans. They got a little wet and muddy.

2. Light

I can't resist taking photos of the lake when there is such a shimmer on the water. I like the way the light of the sun shines through the treetops.

3. Watch

The clouds were pretty ominous over the lake. We had been under a thunderstorm watch earlier in the day. We were prepared to make a run for the car if one hit. We were blessed with only a few light showers during our hike.

4. Perspective

Joe and I usually go for walks in the woods looking for mushrooms but don't often find many. Today we didn't go with anything in mind but having a good time with the grand kids. We found mushrooms everywhere! 

Many edible mushrooms have a look-a-like that is poisonous so it is a good idea to look at them from several perspectives before choosing to eat them.

 

We were pretty certain that this is a Yellow-cracked Bolete after examining the cap, underside, stem and inside. We concluded it to be edible. 

5. Fuel

We see these oil pumpers everywhere in Oklahoma, although many of them are no longer pumping. At one time, Okies would not have believed there would ever be a fuel shortage.

I hope you have enjoyed my post. Thank you for stopping by. I would love for you to leave a comment.

You can see more Scavenger Hunt Sunday photos by clicking the link below. 

Scavenger Hunt Sunday--Week 25

Joe has been out several times over the last few weeks hunting for mushrooms. He had all but given up on finding any until a friend posted on Facebook that they found a big batch. Needless to say, this week he has been hunting with a vengeance. I went along with my Canon to record the hunt.

The first few days out we only managed to find a few dried up red morels and (which are poisonous to some people even if they are fresh) and some old puffballs and inky caps. I did get some good photos though, so it wasn't a total waste of time. I will be doing a series of posts later about edible vegetation, including mushrooms, that can be found growing wild.

My interpretations of this weeks prompts were shots I took on our mushroom hunts this week.

1. Trick

We hoped the land close to water would not be so dry and maybe we could find mushrooms. I couldn't resist taking a few shots from the bridge. When I viewed these pictures later on the computer the images in the water looked like the 'real deal'. It was quite a trick to at first. Did you think the top of the picture was the sky?

2. Selective Color

I don't seem to have a program to produce selective color, so I improvised by choosing photos from the woods that appeared naturally for this prompt. The upper picture is a beef steak mushroom. It was too old and hard to eat. Joe says they do taste like beef.

I didn't pick this nice specimen of moss up to see what it was connected to but the color was a great contrast to the leaves around it.

3. Close Up

On the way to the woods yesterday we stopped at a flea market. We found an 35mm Canon EOS Rebel X with a small lens and a 75-300mm all for $25.00. The lenses fit my digital Canon. I can sell the 35mm camera with the small lens for what I have in it and keep the 75-300mm for myself. I used it for this shot. My other lenses are image stabilizers so I wasn't sure how good this 'close-up' shot would come out with no tripod. I was quite pleased.

4. Mirror

Water is the only mirror that I've found in the woods, but it does make a good one.

5. Bright Colors

Some of my favorite shots are looking up into the trees. The deep blue sky accented by soft white clouds made a nice bright background for the green leaves on the newly budding trees. 

This picture doesn't satisfy any of the prompts but does show that we finally found morels. We were about to call it a day when Joe spotted these. We found around a gallon of them. Needless to say, Joe is a happy hunter!

I hope you enjoyed this session of Scavenger Hunt Sunday. If you would like to see more SHS posts, or would like to participate yourself, you can do so by clicking the link below. Thanks for visiting and please take time to leave a comment so I will know you were here.