Escaping Beaver Trapper

Last week I wrote a short story that is quite a departure for me. It is not YA, not an eco-adventure, and not fiction. Sunday, at the Writers' Guild prose reading series at Box Car Books, I read my new auto-biographical story about two experiences I had over four decades apart. My audience was enthusiastic. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Escaping Beaver Trapper

I’ve never thought of myself as a daredevil. I’m a bookworm and story junkie. But on reflection, that’s me being naïve about my own behavior. To be honest, I have a history of recklessness, of running a little too fast with danger.

It can start so innocently, with a positive mindset of confidence and joy. But, anyone who’s ever ridden a seductive, well-tuned road bike on a glorious May day in quarry country knows how quickly you can pick up speed just coasting downhill.

I just couldn’t slow down fast enough.

Slow down fast enough? Is that an oxymoron?

There was an extreme sharp turn at the bottom. Slow down. Slow down. Slow down!

When I left the road, inertia and physics took over. I flew over the handlebars and landed on my right hip. That part of my body bruised, but didn’t break.

As a youngster, I rode wild, but bounced back from every tumble and scrape. Nothing a little Mercurochrome couldn’t fix. Gosh that stuff stung. It’s a wonder I didn’t develop mercury poisoning before that antiseptic was banned. How did we ever survive?

Then when I hit the danger years of puberty, I wasn’t particularly attracted to the gang of hoods who smoked behind the cafeteria during lunch break, so I avoided that trap. I was an A student, and no one seemed to suspect what the student council kids were really up to: A little political graffiti here; a little guerilla theater there. All for a good cause, and we never got caught.

The summer after my first year in college, I spent time catching up with my daring and clever high school gang. They’d all stayed in Texas, while I’d gone to a small liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest. So I rode with a carload of my friends to Austin to see what I was missing at the big university. We shared stories: My seminar dinners at faculty homes. Their impersonal lecture halls of 300 or more. True, Austin was a very hip city, still is, far sexier than Tacoma, but the U.T. dorms smelled like a locker room. I was pretty sure I’d made a good choice. Maybe I wasn’t so clever, after all. My friends were all planning to stay in Austin for their sophomore year, which started 2 weeks earlier than my school. Meanwhile, I’d embarked on the excursion with them, a good 4-hour drive, without a plan for how I would get back to my childhood home north of Dallas.

Although, I don’t remember how much cash I had, it wasn’t enough for bus fare. In 1973, ATMs and debit cards did not exist. But I knew how to hitchhike. Not that I’d ever done it before, but I figured it couldn’t be that hard. Of course, hitchhiking could be dangerous, but I wasn’t aware of any potential danger to the one thumbing a ride. As far as I knew, any danger of hitchhiking was framed around driver safety and being careful about who to pick up. I didn’t look dangerous. It was going to be easy for me to get a ride.

Understand: I’d never been an athlete. It wasn’t a thing for girls in my era, pre-Title IX.  So, at age 60, I was a rookie rider. My attraction to long-distance bicycling is it’s a sport for all ages. The question isn’t, who can I beat? Which is not my competitive style. It’s, how far can I ride today? I trained with a large group of mixed-ages and abilities, everyone cheering each other on, and it was so much fun. I’ve never been in better physical or emotional shape. We rode 65 miles on Saturday, my personal best, some of it through a pelting rainstorm. On Sunday the sky was that perfect robin’s egg blue with cloud puffs scattered around the hilly horizon. We’d ridden almost 50 miles on that fateful day, and we were on our way back to town. I was a little dehydrated, so perhaps my judgment wasn’t the best.

The friendly, old truck driver said he could take me as far as Waco, before he headed west. So I grabbed my rucksack, waved good-bye to my friend Charlie who’d volunteered to get me started, and hopped up into the cab. The weathered cowboy on wheels spit chew and that’s a disgusting habit. Otherwise, the drive was boring enough, and before we made it to Waco the old trucker offered to help me find a ride for the next leg of my journey. He got on his CB radio, saying he had a girl who was looking for transportation to Richardson, north of Dallas.

Remember, before everyone had cell phones, every trucker had a CB radio that connected him to every other trucker within a 25-50 mile range, depending on terrain and weather conditions. And they all had a CB handle, a code name. So after my trucker sent out the request, somebody responded that he’d heard “Beaver Trapper” was headed home, and he lived north of Dallas. The CB crackled, “Maybe he could give the girl a ride.” My driver chuckled, and I couldn’t believe my luck. I didn’t want to be out on the road alone after dark thumbing for a ride. And, as improbable as it may seem, I had no idea the connotation of the CB handle, Beaver Trapper. I wasn’t exactly pure, but I was completely innocent. It was a different era. Texas hill country looked like Mayberry. I’m still shocked at the pervasive acceptance of sexual assault in casual, boasting language.

Going up one particularly steep hill along Popcorn Road, I fell behind. I’d been training with the group long enough that I was able to go the distance, but I was one of the slowest riders. I kept pedaling, though, zigzagging up the hill. I didn’t have to get off and walk! At the top, I didn’t stop to take a break. Everyone else in my group was already climbing the next hill, so I started to coast. I shifted down in preparation, and peddled twice around, not for speed, to get the chain aligned.

Then, I realized just how steep the incline was.  I still don’t know how fast I was going. I knew that gripping brakes suddenly would cause me to lose control, so I squeezed gently, then firmly, doing my best to maintain stability. I had several factors going for me. The road was dry and clear of debris. There wasn’t a car in sight. It was up to me to navigate the hard left turn at the bottom. By the time I got there I’d slowed to about 10 miles an hour, though that’s a guess. I was able to cut a fair diagonal across the oncoming lane, but what I couldn’t see until I was almost on top of the turn was the crown of the road at the bottom, designed for good drainage, not for good two-wheel traction. It came up so fast.

I felt a lightness. Crossing over the crown gave me a little loft and my wheels a little less friction. Did I actually speed up? The last thing I remember is, at least I won’t hit a tree. 

In Waco, the older trucker turned West, while I climbed up into Beaver Trapper’s cab. The seats had clean upholstery and Western art postcards and photos were taped everywhere, some of it pretty good. You know the type: horses, bison, armadillos, and, of course, jack-a-lope cartoons.

This guy— I do not remember his given name. Let’s call him Trapper for short. He was younger than the first trucker. Not as young as me, but not yet 30, and thank heavens he didn’t smoke or chew tobacco. Quite the opposite: he was drenched in male cologne, the wildly popular Brut. In retrospect, given the name of the cologne, I imagine the TV ADs featured a brutish man who claimed his woman in a veiled ode to rape culture. It was suffocating in the cab, so I rolled the window down.

Trapper was funny and easy going in that Texas-good-old-boy sort of way. He had a big mustache and long sideburns. He was a hippy cowboy. So, kinda cool and fashionable for the time. And, it turned out some of the art, the cast bronze sculptures, were his. Really cool! That’s what I thought. I still don’t know if he was truly a sculptor who drove a truck for his day job or if he just gave me the trucker equivalent of “Let me show you my studio,” because soon after we crossed the Trinity River and headed through downtown Dallas, he wanted to take me home for the night to the barn he'd converted to a studio, instead of dropping me off north of the city where I wanted to go. We were still on the interstate going 70 miles per hour. How was I going to get out and get home?  

I don’t remember my short flight over the handlebars. I do remember yelling help. The shock was intense. The pain, insane. But I hadn’t hit my head, I never lost consciousness, and it didn’t take long for the group behind me to catch up. Several guys straddled their road bikes in their spandex, trying to assess how badly I’d been injured. Should they call 911? Meanwhile, I felt e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, so apparently I wasn’t paralyzed.

But I couldn’t sit up. I didn’t scream or cry. I didn’t want to scare the youngest rider, a skinny boy about 12. In a classic girl move, I thought about someone else’s fear and protected him over expressing my own pain.          

I was clearly in shock, so I don’t know how long it took for the leader to cycle back to our location. As a long-time rider and professional chiropractor who’d seen plenty of injuries, he knew what to look for. I wiggled my fingers and toes and pushed against him, as he instructed. He didn’t think I’d broken anything because everything worked—good news—and what I was feeling—not good—was apparently overall stun from the body slam. So, instead of calling for an ambulance, they called for another rider to bring a car.

I still couldn’t sit up, but I rolled over on my hands and knees to take the pressure off my back. I remember saying, “This hurts worse than childbirth,” but I still didn’t cry or scream. Instead I talked a blue streak, about all sorts of things, anything to keep my mind off of the pain. The younger boys rode on and I drifted into politics. When I sensed I was making the chiropractor uncomfortable—as in, I’m typically left of Bernie and he’s probably much more conservative—I got quiet. Fiery pain consumed my entire core. More than one car stopped to ask if we needed help. Ironically, we even saw a passing fire truck, but they were all waved on. By that time, when I did ask for help, it was only in my head. Nothing came out of my mouth.

Inside Trapper’s cab I pressed as far to the right as I could go and leaned my head out the window, letting the summer air clear the Brut out of my lungs and whip my long hair into knots. The man was determined to get me deep into the country, where he had studio space and we could have a good roll in the hay. But I didn’t want intimate contact with him, especially not in a damn barn.

He was still barreling down the interstate, and it would have been ugly if we’d had a physical fight and he’d driven off the highway. Not that I was thinking strategically about the situation. I simply went with my only weapon: words. I delivered an onslaught of words, mostly about how if I wasn’t into it, it wasn’t going to be fun for him either. I kept talking louder and louder, and then I started pulling snapshots and postcards off the headliner, throwing the armadillos and roadrunners, one by one, out the window.  That did it. He pulled onto the shoulder, barely coming to a stop, and I jumped into the dust and down the embankment. That’s how I escaped the Beaver Trapper.

After my spectacular bicycle accident my healing journey has been slow. On the outside, the signs of injury were minimal. I barely got a scratch. But, the internal damage? I’m lucky I didn’t end up losing bladder control—permanently—or the capacity for sexual pleasure, because when I fell my L1 vertebrae was partially crushed. Add to that wound: compression fractures in T11 and L3, along with serious strain to the parasympathetic nervous system, internal organs, and surrounding tissues.

For several months I was bedridden. My husband and son helped me to the bathroom, and my only outings were to doctor’s appointments. Once I got the back brace, I tried to get out every once in a while, because the isolation was the worst thing of all, but I hated appearing weak and vulnerable. I lost an inch in height, twenty pounds, and a year-and-a-half.

I called from the payphone across the street from the Baskin and Robbins ice cream shop less than 2 miles from my house, and my stepfather came to pick me up. I just said I got dropped off, and he never asked anything about who’d given me a ride or anything about my trip from Austin. Nobody did. Thinking back, it’s odd that I never talked about Beaver Trapper to anyone. I was ashamed I’d been so stupid.

Then I heard a political candidate brag about grabbing pussy. And soon after a friend told the story of her own rape escape, also at a tender, trusting age. Not that rapists only go for the sweet young things. They also attack nasty old women. So, I’m still not truly safe from the Beaver Trappers of the world.

I have a wonderful healing team. I do physical therapy on my living room floor and in the pool. I’m still regaining core strength and stamina and breaking up scar tissue so my hips swing freely again. When I am vertical, defying gravity, I practice perfect posture to stay out of pain. I really am getting better.

But I still sleep a lot. And I’m still unpacking and dismantling the trauma. My healers tenderly remind me that my body and spirit hold all the traumas of my life, all wound up together, and my parasympathetic nervous system sends clear signals for me to focus on keeping those nerves calm, because my guts still get hijacked by the slightest trigger.  As every old wound surfaces in my mind, from parent neglect to sabotage in the workplace, moments that have previously been lost to my conscious thought, I’m now forced to heal and forgive, and dissolve those scars, too.

I’m so thankful a charming hippy cowboy opened his trap door long enough for me to escape physical assault.

If only I hadn’t been seduced on Popcorn Road by the free flowing wind against my skin on that most glorious afternoon in May.  

Water Is Life: Prayers from Standing Rock

Alice Brown Otter, age 12, of the Standing Rock Sioux.

I first became aware of what was happening at Standing Rock, North Dakota, when I saw this story from MSNBC and Alice Brown Otter captured my heart. I've been writing about fictional eco-warriors of the future, and now my attention has turned to Alice and present day eco-warriors on the front lines. She and other kids from the Defenders of the Water School are my real life heroes.

Last summer Alice ran to Washington D.C. to petition government agencies to protect the water of her home. Meanwhile, thousands of water protectors have congregated in one of the most remote areas of North Dakota. Indigenous people and their allies from all over the world have come to camp on the bluffs overlooking Lake Oahe, where the Cannonball River joins the and Missouri watershed.

Map by cartographer Carl Sack

The Mni Wiconi, Water is Life movement, gained its recent momentum when LaDonna Brave Bull Allard saw an oil company's plan to build a pipeline just north and upriver from her home on Sioux Reservation land and under the great Missouri River. Allard and her tribe know oil pipelines break regularly, and this was their source of drinking water. So, the Sioux elders began to pray. They know that water is sacred. Water is life.

The women at the forefront of #NoDAPL say they are water protectors, not protesters. This is an important distinction, for the heart of our country shares the Missouri and Mississippi watershed and the water they are protecting belongs to us all.

Since early September, water protectors have been the brunt of escalating violence from militarized police forces sent by the state and county to protect oil interests. The forces deploy long-range acoustic devices, chemical weapons, non-lethal beanbag shot, batons, and even attack dogs.

Josh Fox, director of Gasland (available on Netflix), talks about human rights violations in a "Police State of Oil-igarchy"

Future Developments
Friday, December 4th, dialog between tribal leaders and the Army Corps of Engineers bodes well. The conversation has focused around seeking delays in construction and permitting until full studies can be conducted. But this is an unfolding story, and the outcome of the dialog meetings (there are a series over the upcoming weeks) would be speculative at this point. The hope is for a de-escalation of violence.

Even before the beginning of dialog, the women of Standing Rock planned a Forgiveness March on November 6th to the Morton County Sheriff's office in Mandan, North Dakota.

On land adjacent the Cannonball River, Standing Rock Sioux plan to build their Just Transition Community, an eco-village with earth lodge and straw bale construction and solar and wind power. This building plan is already approved by the federal agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs.

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into how real life eco-warriors engage with their world, tap on KHBrower.com.

Remember, we are all connected. For your appreciation, here are images of our shared watershed.

For more in-depth reading:
NoDAPL map
Historical timeline and in-depth Standing Rock syllabus (from indigenous scholars and allies)
New Yorker (historical context)
The Atlantic (destruction of archeological sites)
New York Times (current situation)
Time (legal context about Sioux land that's "held in trust" by the U.S. government)
EcoWatch (meet the women leading the water protectors)
Yes! Magazine (Lakota prophecy of the black snake)

Fall Break: Time to Kick Leaves

Lion's Mane: Cognitive Boosts in a Writer's Life

Lion's Mane, Hercium erinaceus, with its distinctive shaggy look

Lion's mane is typically difficult to find in the wild, but earlier this week I spotted this beauty on a fallen tree a few steps off a city park trail. I left the lovely specimen tucked under some foliage undisturbed, hoping it will continue to grow and no one else will snag it before I return to harvest.

Though experts disagree on efficacy, lion's mane shows promise as a nerve regenerator that functions as a cognitive enhancer, as well as serving in traditional medicinal uses for a variety of health concerns, including digestive and cholesterol issues.

I've been getting another kind of cognitive boost this past week. I've been taking an online writing class from the University of Iowa, and in my first assignment I wrote a short story based on a character and an event that Virginia and Gordy witness in Mission to Green Tara. It's the moment when a colonial pod stuffed with "volunteers" from the cruise ship is released into deep space and dropped off in the middle of nowhere. The Maderas kids know the pod has no navigation, communication, or oxygen filtering capabilities. In other words, it's a death sentence for the volunteer colonists. Story structure wise, it's the moment when Virginia crosses the first threshold and takes action. Specifically, it's the moment when Virginia decides to defy authority in a really big way, escape from the massive cruise ship controlled by ruthless despots, and rescue her mother after a decade of being lost in space.

My new short story, "Release and Settlement," is told from the perspective of a young girl who is released with the volunteers. After fielding notes from my writing group and my revisions, I plan to submit the short story to sci-fi publications.

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into fungi and myco-remediation, tap on KHBrower.com.

Digging Deeper: Why Fungi Matters to Space Travelers

Fly Agaric, Amanita muscaria variety formosa.
past its prime and shrouded in a lacy, miscellaneous mold

My literary research includes thinking out loud with experts about what types of fungi space travelers would need and why.

For Mission to Blue Grannus, my work-in-progress, I sketched out the major beats of the story for both the plot line and what I call the heart line of the story. However, as I'm drafting I still must answer many detailed questions.  So even when I'd like to whip through scenes, simply adding words and paragraphs and pages to my manuscript, often I need to pause and dig deeper into the character's inner life and the demands of the natural world Gordy and Virginia encounter.

This past week I've been toggling back and forth between the emotional arc, the lessons that come out of Gordy's experience, and the scientific motivations of his mission.

Spoiler Alert! Here's a passage from my current draft of chapter 14. The Council Circle, in which the community's need for fungi is outlined:

     Jimmy continued, “The Blue Moon Trading Post is a regular stop for us and typically we would pick up mushrooms and fungi supplies for terraforming trade. Unfortunately, our normal contacts are missing, so we need to trade directly with the mushroom man, the primary source of product, supplies, and propagation knowledge.” 

     The crowd murmured, and I had an aha moment about the renegades around me. They weren’t just pirates—though that’s how I’d first known them—they were active in the terra-forming trade. As fungi were the absolute foundation of a healthy soil of a thriving ecosystem, and it made sense they would be involved. 

     I leaned over to Virginia and shared a memory. "Remember our fungi forays on Green Tara?" I explained to Lora and Lee, "On our planetary trek we hunted mushrooms for dinner." 

     "Better than cicadas!" Virginia screwed up her face in mock horror.

     I chuckled, remembering some of our more gruesome dinners. I asked Lora and Lee, “Is terraforming the main business of the tribe?”   

     “Fungi,” Lora said. 

     “… is our biz,” Lee said. 

     “Mycelium networks,” Lora said. 

     “ … connect all of life,” Lee said.

     “Fungi are valuable for,” Lora said. 

     “Terraformation,” Lee said.

     “Myco-remediation,” Lora said.

     “Medicinal extracts,” Lee said.

     “Medicine for things like radiation poisoning?” Virginia asked. I knew that officially mushroom extracts were not considered effective beyond a general immune system boost, but renegades and colonial cruisers alike believed in them. So they'd be a valuable product to trade. The twins nodded. 

     “And you said myco-remediation. You mean using mushrooms to restore a compromised environment?" I'd seen signs of radiation poisoning in the Blue Moon Trading Post. "Near here? On the Grannus Moon?"

     "They poisoned ...," Lora nodded.

     "... the water," Lee nodded. 

     "All of it downstream ..., Lora said. 

     "... of the old dam," Lee said.

The decaying mushroom has one last
ecstatic reach to the sky.
Within hours of this snapshot
the delicate mold and most of
the mushroom body had disappeared.  

You may be wondering how my visuals of moldy mushrooms relate to this part of the story. They don't. But the magical, lacy fringe will most definitely make an appearance later in the story, once Gordy and Virginia make it farther upstream into the heart of the ice caves.

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into fungi and myco-remediation, tap on KHBrower.com.

Daily Rhythm & Pace of Author Activities

Often it feels like I'm taking one baby step at a time,
without a clear path more than a step or two ahead of me.

Ever since my spectacular bicycle accident I have been developing new habits around writing. I pay attention to when and where my body needs to stretch and elongate. Doctor's orders. Sometimes I stand to write. Sometimes I speak into an audio recorder while I pace and voice recognition software translates my spoken words to text. Right now I'm at a regular height desk on a bouncy chair made of bungee cords, but I know I cannot sit for long at any one time. So, I pace myself and throughout the day I integrate my hands-on research into my daily actions.

I take care of a short section of a stream,
picking up trash and keeping a log of water quality.

For example, this morning I took my dog Lucy for a walk with my writerly friend, M., in our favorite local park. We catch up on family and home remodel stories, and often discuss how we're handling a particular rewrite or a breakthrough in how we've found to connect with our readers.

When we crossed the creek I saw how low the water is right now. We've had rain all summer, so the partially dry creek bed exposed all sorts of trash. I'm an adopt-a-stream volunteer for our Parks Department and this section is mine, so I got my trash picker, bag, and badge and did my civic duty.

Three Sisters is a classic southwest
American Indian combination of
squash, beans and corn

Then I came home and  prepared a bowl of Three Sisters, dancing while I heated and stirred. After my brunch and a short burst of writing (the first draft of this post), I managed several pieces of business communication and scheduling.

The pattern of a typical writing day for me includes:

• Move - dance/swim/walk
• Cooking meditation
• Write for a short burst 
• Connect with other creative partners and champions
• Hands-on research
• Eco-warrior actions
• Read 
• Repeat, with loose variations 

What I look for in each day is a healthy balance. I write about eco-warriors and scientists, so each day I incorporate activities that at least honor the spirit of intention of the heroes in my adventure stories.

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into fungi and myco-remediation, tap on KHBrower.com.

Foray at Griffy Lake Park: Autumnal Equinox 2016

Aspen Bolete, perchance?

Spotting this magnificent beauty was the climax of an impromptu day hike with my dear friend, Shayne Laughter. The weather was perfect, we both had an unscheduled afternoon, and the stars were aligned.

We walked along the high trail, the north loop of the trail that starts at the far side of the dam. We got our feet wet crossing the spillway, but the day was warm and our shoes compatible with the conditions.

Griffy Lake Dam

We climbed the stairs to the left and entered the woods. It's a young forest. Where the land was once thick with old growth woods, several places have had as many as two clear cuts. Now the trees are almost all thin, and even the undergrowth is sparse, though we did see one mother tree and very distinct signs that the soil is healthy, rich with mycelium running.

From the moment we stepped into the shade, we encountered friends of the Fungi Kingdom. Look at all these beauties!

First of the foray. I've seen this one before
on the trail above Jackson Creek.

At the next bend in the trail,
we saw several of these.

Low-angle, underside view of the cap

One hillside was thick with this sponge type.
This group appear to have already sporulated.
They were stiff and dry to the touch.

This coral sample was springy to the touch,
in comparison to those above.

Dappled sunlight shines a spotlight on the magnificent bolete.

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into fungi and myco-remediation, tap on KHBrower.com.

Getting Comfortable with Chaos

Author at Play
The sound of a distant flute player floats in the cool morning air and enters my story,
Mission to Blue Grannus.

I'm currently drafting Mission to Blue Grannus. This morning I noodled around with chapter 16, "Inside the Blue Ice Caves," in which Gordy & Virginia enter and begin to explore a new micro-climate on the blue moon. I'm thinking about how the thick mass of ice shields the people from gamma radiation, and that's why the former workers from the abandoned water mine thrive in a colony inside the caves. I'm thinking about how the hot springs deep in the caves keep the water warm and the ambient air temp chilly, but survivable. And I'm thinking about how the caverns are filled with the cheerful sounds of gecko chirps. Creating the story world is one of my favorite parts of the novel writing process. 

In my first full draft, I'm approaching the midpoint of the story. This is a passage of great chaos for the character. In structure theory terms, it's when everything the main character thought was true is not and the true nature of the mission is revealed. 

Sometimes the author's experience mirrors the character's experience, and that's what's happening to me. So, I'm doing my best to get comfortable with the chaos of not knowing exactly what happens next. This is partly because I'm tuning into the main character Gordy's voice every day and he's wondering what's happening next. It's also because I keep changing elements of my outline. 

Some changes are simple and will streamline and strengthen the story--like going back to ch. 15 and eliminating the old woman in rags on top of the old hydro-power dam and replacing her with the hermit guide I had planed to introduce in 16. Moving up his first appearance gives us more time to get to know the pivotal guide character before the big reveal at the midpoint. (more about that big pivot when I get there)

Anther change that I'm contemplating is not so simple. It's threaded throughout the story. I've been thinking all along that the primary reason Gordy needs to go on his mission to find the mushroom man deep in the ice caves is to retrieve fungi that will serve for radiation poisoning remediation. However, last Friday I spoke with mycologist Dr. Michael Tansey as part of my research efforts. The topic of our conversation was the possible role of fungi for space travelers:

• radiation poisoning remediation - to absorb gamma radiation ever present in outer space
• food - the most efficient way to transport would be in nutritionally dense powder form
• medicinal - anti-viral and immunological boosts- though not all scientists agree on the medicinal value of various mushrooms, there is a long history of traditional use 
• terraforming - Did you know that in the early epochs of life on planet Earth the fungi Kingdom spread on the land long before vascular plants? Or that 80-95% of vascular plants thrive in symbiotic relationships with mycelium networks in the soil? Basically, you have to have fungi to have soil. You have to have soil to have plants, and plant life is one of those things we expect on a terraformed planet. 

After conversation, it was clear that the most essential of the possible uses of fungi for humans in space is terraforming.  So I'm rethinking the motive behind the mission and how that might affect the story in other ways. I'm wondering if the mushroom man changes the nature of the mission with his expertise, as in Gordy's mission is to trade for myco-remediation and medicinals, and the mushroom man recommends various patches of mycorrhizal fungi for terraforming.

If that's confusing for you, imagine how much my writer's brain is exploding with possibilities. I'm thrilled by, afraid of, and in my best moments, comfortable with the chaos of my creative process.

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into fungi and myco-remediation, tap on KHBrower.com.

Turkey Tail Report: Trametes versicolor Makes a Home in My Back Yard

I first saw my turkey tail patch growing in the early summer following a lot of spring rain on a stump we use for chopping firewood. I wasn't sure, as I'm a novice mycologist, but it had the markers: the ringed color patterns and the nested groupings of the caps. Also, the top side of the caps were fuzzy to the touch. I checked my trusty reference guide and it said to look for whitish spores. But I couldn't see any spores. Perhaps those emerging caps were too young to produce spores. (note to self: Ask an experienced mycologist when the caps typically start producing spores. My guess is there are a number of factors, like air temperature and humidity, in addition to the maturity of the mushrooming body.)

Turkey Tail emerging, July 11, 2016

I didn't think my turkey tail -- and yes, I call it MY turkey tail, for I have abounding, familial affection for my back patio patch -- would thrive in its volunteer location here in Bloomington, Indiana. During midsummer this spot was destined to get full sun for several hours a day, and the stump is too heavy to move without a good reason.

But, before I asked my 6'4" son to roll it back under the shade of the deck so the mushrooms wouldn't struggle in the heat, it rained. It rained a lot here--all summer l-o-n-g. While the western states fried, the midwest flooded and my turkey tail thrived. Here's my mushroom stump a month later.

New growth after the storm, August 14th 

The other side of the stump with another, shorter-lived species, August 18

This past weekend I photographed my turkey tail again, after a couple of weeks of "normal" late summer weather, in other words, HOT. The patch is clearly thriving despite the heat. I love the green rings and wonder why one section of caps has developed a new color scheme. When I shared my pictures with my Mycelium Running seminar tribe, one cautioned my identification, saying she had encountered a turkey tail look-alike.

Is MY turkey tail really Trametes versicolor, or an imposter? September 10, 2016

Under the cap you can see the whitish pore openings where the spores come out -- shot with a macro lens.

So I asked a local mycology prof, Dr. Michael R. Tansey of Indiana University, to verify or set me straight. From the two photos pictured above, this is what he said:

"This is Turkey-tail.  It is our most common mushroom.  It is very common.  I have been out walking today, and it is abundant.  FYI:  Most experienced mushroom people agree that what we call the Turkey-tail is, at the level of analysis of the DNA, many different species.  Indeed, I have seen unpublished DNA data from our local specimens, and they cannot be one "real" species.  I remember one of the most experienced wood-rot fungi experts, years ago, telling me that it must be a dozen species."  

Ta Da! I'm thrilled I correctly identified fungi--even if not DNA-specific in my ID--in the wilds of my back yard. And now that the sun has dropped lower and the stump is in the shade for more of the day, I doubt anything will disturb my turkey tail, until we have really cold weather. Remember, turkey tail is everywhere. See if you can find some in your neighborhood.

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into fungi and myco-remediation, tap on KHBrower.com.

P.S. If anyone has thoughts or recipes about making a medicinal extract, please send them my way. This literary scientist is ready to try most anything.

Oyster Mushroom Report 4 of 4:Two More Clusters

Last week I left you with a real cliff hanger: after I harvested one cluster from my second flush, I saw emergent growth in a handful of clusters around the edge of the bucket.

Day 9 - primordia emerge from clusters that did not thrive in the first flush

Could I keep them happy enough to thrive, or would they shrivel and die in the summer heat or air conditioned air, or suffer oxygen deprivation from life under a humidity tent? There are several variables to consider when growing mushrooms outside a perfectly controlled, lab environment.

Day 10 - No guarantees, but hopeful growth.

Some days I carried the bucket back and forth, into my living room during the heat of the day and out to the screened-in deck for moist night air.

Day 11 - Cautious optimism is in order. The new growth has outpaced the fruit that did not thrive in the first flush.

Two of the five clusters in this third flush continued to thrive. Three did not.

Day 12 - Graceful formations in two clusters.

In the second flush I think I harvested a day too soon, before the outer edges arch upward.  (I'd been frustrated by the coral formation of the first flush and was impatient.) This time, I waited patiently.

Day 13 - The edges never arched upward -- apparently drooping in the heat.

This time I may have harvested a day later than prime, as the outer edges thinned and lost their hearty texture. Regardless, the results were pretty spectacular. Here they are ready to saute along with onions, potatoes and peppers. My son and husband approved of our Labor Day weekend supper.

The dark coffee grounds on the base of the clusters on the far left and top right, help show the growth pattern of a cluster of oyster mushrooms. 

I'll let you know if there's any more action in the bucket. Right now it's at rest, and I'm letting the bucket dry out. 

Meanwhile, I need to get back to a scene in Mission to Blue Grannus. Gordy and Virginia are preparing for their trek to the blue ice caves, where they hope to find the mushroom man.

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into fungi and myco-remediation, tap on KHBrower.com.

Oyster Mushroom Report 3 of 4: Second Flush is a Success

Day 1 - first flush of fruit 

One month after I inoculated coffee grounds in a bucket with healthy mycelium, 5 days after I trimmed back undesirable coral growth and gave the bucket more air by using the tent less and moving outside of the drying air-conditioning, I finally spot emergent mushrooms. These are a much healthier shape than the coral growth I saw last week. 

I'm calling this first siting Day 1.

I captured these tiny primorida using a macro lens.

Day 2 - rapid growth using regular iPhone camera lens

Day 2 - rapid growth

Here I'm pointing to the same cluster pictured above.

Day 3 - continued growth

The next day the growth rate slows a bit. 

Day 4 - close to harvest

The ideal shape for picking is just as the caps uncurl and reach upward creating a funnel shape, and before they flatten out too much.

Morning light on thriving oyster mushrooms. By evening they were ready to harvest and it was dark and I was hungry, so there's no picture of me sautéing these with garlic. Yummy.

Day 5 - after the harvest

At the same time the cluster pictured above had grown, I spotted another handful of clusters begin to emerge. I had high hopes that I'd enjoy a series of small flushes. 

I didn't think it would help to keep them inside for any length of time, because the air-conditioning would dry them out and the humidity tent seemed to starve them of oxygen. So I took the bucked outside.  

Unfortunately, the summer heat got extreme, rising to 90 degrees in the midday, and those temps are not most conducive to oysters. My hopes of more culinary delight were dashed as I watched them start to shrivel.

Day 8 - shriveled clusters

Disappointing, to say the least

Day 8 - 2 of 5 clusters - apparent failure to thrive

Day 9 - what next?

This morning, I was thinking about what I could do to coax more activity from the mycelium patch I've created, and look what I found: fresh emergent growth!

Day 9 - white emergent growth appears around the clusters that didn't thrive. 

I'll let you know what happens next week. 

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into fungi and myco-remediation, tap on KHBrower.com.