Insert clever mycelium metaphor here. For our January meeting, via Zoom, we're going to hear about, and talk about, making connections across the sprawling world of mycology. Our speaker will be Melodie Gates, treasurer of the North American Mycological Association, and a longtime member of the South Sound Mushroom Club. Her topic:  the benefits of joining NAMA, an organization that brings together professional and amateur mycologists and affiliated mycological societies across the continent. Building on that outreach theme, we'll also explore…

Lowell Dietz, a club member for more than 30 years, started cultivating and selling mushrooms more than 20 years ago and has since branched out into permaculture and a soil enhancement technique called bio-char. His Zoom talk  at 7 pm on Feb.11  is "How to Turn Garbage Into Food." Here's his description of his talk: "A spiritual quest led to new friends who helped re-discover ancient permaculture methods that could feed communities cut off from traditional modern food supplies.   Those…

The underground world of fungal mycelium is where biologist Anne Biklé  is focused. She and her husband, geologist David Montgomery, wrote The Hidden Half of Nature. It's an exploration of microbial life, and how it underpins the health of the soil and of our own bodies. She'll talk about this point of view on Thursday, March 11, at 7 pm in our Zoom-based general meeting. Beforehand, you can read up on their work on the connections between people, plants, food, health, and…

To make sure you're prepared for the Spring Kings and then all the boletes that follow, our April 8 speaker will be Daniel Winkler. He wears a lot of hats -- he created the familiar Northwest edible mushroom laminated folder, and he runs MushRoaming, an eco-adventure business. He will talk about Boletes of the Pacific Northwest, and about new training tools called MycoCard. Zoom credentials for the meeting are available to KPMS members.    

Calling all Citizen Scientists -- Lauren Re, of the South Sound Mushroom Club, will be our Zoom guest on   Thursday, May 13, at 7 pm. She'll discuss research projects in mushroom diversity that we can each contribute to, just by reporting our interesting finds. The Zoom link and credentials are in the Members Forum.  

If you're into mushroom dyes, you know about Alissa Allen. If you don't know about Alissa, come to our annual KPMS member picnic prepared to be amazed. All around us are humble mushrooms and lichens that can turn wool and silk into bright purple, green, gold, rose, even neon yellow. Alissa, a KPMS member, the founder of Mycopigments, teaches mushroom identification and dyeing. She'll show us how, guide us through some options, and send each participant home with a fresh-dyed…

We're thrilled to offer, for our September meeting, a live Zoom presentation by Dr. Suzanne Simard, a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia. She is the researcher figuring out how trees communicate and care for each other, with fungal collaborators. She has a famous TED talk and her new book, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, is a bestseller. We hope you'll join us for her insights. Here is the Zoom link,…

We're organizing two member forays this Saturday, Oct. 9, at Green Mountain, west of Bremerton. Our Green Mountain forays are great introductions to our local habitat and species, so we've taken steps with the DNR to make sure we can continue to offer them despite the pandemic. Members can find the details here.