Zara and Glendon Rhoades' children Aliyah, 5, left, and Judah, 2, with the giant puffball mushroom found near the Battlefords recently. (Submitted photo/Glendon Rhoades)

By Angela Brown

A big surprise

Family delighted with huge mushroom find

Oct 9, 2022 | 5:47 PM

A young family east of the Battlefords had a big surprise over the past weekend.

It wasn’t the Great Pumpkin of Charlie Brown mythology, heralding the approach of Halloween.

Instead it was a giant puffball mushroom, sitting alone on a farmer’s field, appearing completely out of the ordinary.

Zara Rhoades said her neighbour, farmer Clark Rafuse, discovered it on his property and asked her and her family to take a look since he knew they were mushroom enthusiasts.

Rhoades was delighted with the find, and so were her husband, Glendon, and their children Aliyah and Judah.

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“We went over there and we dug it up. It’s big, it’s nearly 43 inches in circumference,” she said, adding that the family didn’t weigh it because it had already dried up a bit.

“It wasn’t fresh so we haven’t been able to eat it,” Rhoades said.

Clark Rafuse, who gifted the Rhoades with the puffball phenomenon, said he had never seen a mushroom as big as that before.

“I thought: What the heck is that?” he said. “At first I thought it was a rock. I went over there and touched it and thought it felt like leather.”

Rafuse soon surmised it must be a mushroom and invited the Rhoades family to come check it out and see if they could identify it.

Zara Rhoades said it was her first time finding a giant puffball mushroom.

“I was stunned,” she said. “There was this great big white lump. It just looked so out of place. It was quite stunning. It’s a beautiful mushroom.”

The family loves foraging for wild mushrooms so they were thrilled with this unique find. There is something about mushrooms growing sporadically in nature that makes them especially appealing.

“I think there is a mysterious element, like you don’t know when a mushroom is going to pop up,” Rhoades said. “And they can pop up overnight. There is an element of surprise and you never know what you are going to find.”

The family purchased some field guides to help them identify different kinds of mushrooms they find in the wild, and determine which ones are safe to eat.

“In another neighbour’s yard, we found some shaggy parasol mushrooms, and those things are big. Those ones you can eat,” Rhoades said. “We filled a stroller full actually. We brought them home and dried them. That was a couple of years ago; we’re still eating them now.”

She noted the hobby of mushroom hunting sometimes gets a bad rap unfortunately.

“People automatically think you are looking for magic mushrooms and you want to get a trip,” she said.

But that isn’t the case.

“There are so many more mushrooms out there than the dangerous ones,” Rhoades said.

She said many fresh mushrooms that are safe to eat, simply taste good. Whether sautéed with some butter on a skillet, or tossed into a stew, they are an excellent addition to any meal.

The whole family enjoys them.

“They don’t last very long,” Rhoades said. “The kids love them.”

And as for the huge puffball mushroom find, the family plan to spread its spores near their home, and hope to have their own puffballs one day.

“We might have giant puffballs growing in our own yard at some point,” Rhoades said.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow