Tuesday January 30, 2024 Guerneville CA.
Forest ride
Barry showed up for a ride so off we went. We didn’t get far before he had to stop to check out a mushroom spot for wild mushrooms.
He found a few here.
We moved to the next spot where he found a lot more of the mushrooms.
These were the ones he was looking for. Black chanterelles. They were late in the season and getting a bit old. But these ones don’t get bugs and worms in them like most of the other ones and they keep well.
None here
He checked out this spot for mushrooms but didn’t find any, but got some exercise walking around in the forest.
Spring
After that, we rode over to the main spring where he washed his hands and got a drink of water.
Big downed tree
Then we rode around a bit and eventually stopped at this big downed tree to check it out and talk about how to get it down safely. This is or was a big madrone tree. There’s lots of firewood in that tree.
Break time
We rode around some more and rode around some neighbor’s places then headed up to the ridgetop for a good break.
There were some clouds in the sky as there is some rain coming in soon. Today turned out real nice.
We rode around some more then worked our way towards home where Barry took his mushrooms and headed for his place.
Bridge bulkhead repairs
I spent a little time working on this hole in the bridge bulkhead where most of our gravel had washed out in a big rain storm awhile back. The rock washed out the bottom so I needed to put some larger rocks in there to keep the gravel in.
I had some cement pieces on the old bridge so I used them instead of rocks as that’s what I had. Some of the cement pieces were larger than I could lift, so I got out the sledge hammer to break them into smaller pieces that I could carry to the hole.
I hit the cement block until it broke into smaller pieces and moved them to the hole.
Enough for one day
You can see some of the cement pieces at the bottom of the hole. That was enough work for one day. Eventually, I’ll get some more gravel rock to fill in the hole, but not today.
Nice day.
Back home we soak wild mushrooms/morels in cold water with some salt. All the bugs and worms float to the top. A good rinse or two and they are good to go.
Curious about the bridge issue, if the stones or gravel are falling through maybe a wire cage would be helpful in keeping them in place. It looks in the pics as if the problem is run off pounding on it, maybe diverting the run off, if possible, may help as well.