A puff piece
Photo by JOE WARD Ten year old Isaac Cleve with the giant puffball mushroom.
Photo by JOE WARD Shane Cleve, Elissa Cleve, Isaac Cleve and Evan Cleve watch as the giant mushroom is carved up.
Photo by JOE WARD Cutting the puffball into slabs the size of steaks.
Photo by JOE WARD The family got to sample their first puffball mushroom.
Photo by MANDI BATEMAN This giant puffball mushroom was thriving in the rainy, cool weather this spring.
BONNERS FERRY — Joe Ward found a big surprise on his property on Westside Road, in the form of a giant puffball mushroom, larger than a basketball. His grandchildren got a chance to help harvest it in its peak of ripeness and they watched in amazement as the giant fungus was carved up and prepared.
Eight year old Elissa Cleve didn’t like mushrooms, but she was excited enough to try it.
“The butter makes it taste good,” she said, rating it 8.5 out of 10.
Mushroom loving, 10-year-old Isaac Cleve said it was five times better than the farm raised mushrooms he had earlier that day.
“I’ve never seen a mushroom that big,” he said. “It is amazing how mushrooms here can grow that big and how we found one that was edible.”
The wet spring has made for a bountiful Boundary County.