This 84-Year-Old Retiree Wants ‘the Internet’ to See a Massive Mushroom He Found
Don Smith is proud.
You may not be able to tell from the photo, but, as his granddaughter wrote on Facebook, Don Smith is a very happy man. That’s a mushroom he’s got on his lap, a 15-pound mushroom, which he found on his 100-acre property in North Dorchester, Ontario, about 90 miles southwest of Toronto.
“I look for them once in awhile because I know a few people who like them,” Smith explained to the CBC. “I don’t like them myself, but I give them to my friends.”
The mushroom is a puffball, which grow in the wild and can be eaten, though Smith said he isn’t much of a fan.
“I’ve tried them a time or two myself, but I don’t care for the taste of them. It’s kind of a woody taste,” he told the CBC. “They say fry them in butter.”
The puffball Smith found is 20 inches, which, while large, is still rather short of the record. That belongs to a 66.5-inch puffball found in England in 2010, according to the CBC.
Still, Smith said his was probably too big for the person he gifted it to.
“I imagine he’ll have to have a few friends in to help him eat it,” Smith said. “It’s a fair size.”
Indeed, it is.
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