yeah our woods has some really really swampy areas too, the county drained all the neighboring land onto our property, bless their little pointed heads. However, we have been working on establishing a drainage system to keep the land from flooding, we have a swamp and overflow pond, and then a drainage ditch to another overflow pond to another drainage ditch that runs about 800' farther through our woods, mostly swamp in that area and then on to a creek on the neighboring property to the river. we haven't established the drainage areas IN the woods and swamp area..some of it should be made into ponds so as to keep the rest of the woods from flooding, but swamps also purify the water so they are necessary..and lots of wildlife live in them in the winter, esp the whitetail deer and bear..so we don't want to get rid of all the swampy areas.. yeah if Joel hadn't been with me i likely would have quit after a few fall downs in water..but he was there to urge me to finish up..later that week i did roll off the remaining wire and it appears that we must have gotten just about to the end of our property line marking it..so that is good, (however just past where we ended were some beautiful maple trees that i hate to think might get cut down if they AREN'T on our property. Meldy we had a pulp co steal a bunch of full size maples and oaks back there about 20 years ago..when my FIL had them pulp off his property, they were supposed to only take enough of the aspens to get through our properpty to his and they cleared nearly the entire forest..we were so sad..they gave us a few hundred bucks..like that helps..we haven't been able to use the woods since..

Was it growing on woody debris? I'm leaning towards Lepista nuda (wood blewit) which is quite a variable species. A pale pink spore print would confirm this ID. Incidentally the delicious variety I grow on my woodchip beds produces specimens just like the one in your photo.

OK here are some pictures. What we have done so far is use a stripper on the top, let sit for 20 minutes, scraped lots of gunky stuff off, then repeated. Next we used mineral spirits to clean up the remaining residue. Then we sanded the top. We really haven't adequately sanded it because we ran out of sandpaper so the sanding is quite spotty. I then cleaned up again with mineral spirits so that I could take the pictures. We haven't done anything to the rest of the piece. It is incredibly red. The back has some markings on it including one that says, "mah." I assume that means mahogany, but I don't know if that refers to the wood or the original finish. I really don't want this thing to be red. I need it to be light to medium brown. If I have to go to a dark brown, then I might as well paint it instead of staining it. Any suggestions? This is the back and shows the top after sanding. This shows the front with nothing done to it. The top after all the procedures described above. Close-up after procedure.

Been awhile since someone left a comment, but I thought I'd add mine. This was a great year for me and my brambles. A mild winter (only to -17F) and good snow cover plus agribon allowed about 50% of the canes on my Wild Treasure, Black Diamond and Marion to survive. Picked a total of 7 1/2 pounds of blackberries (mostly from very tasty Wild Treasure). I played with leaving row cover on until they began flowering and that helped hasten harvest by two weeks. Wild Treasure (pictured above) and Black Diamond started ripening around the first of August, Marion about 10 days later. I got nearly a full crop off of Wild Treasure by Labor Day weekend - a first for me, especially considering the very cool summers here (761 growing degree days, base 50F, this year). Wasps stayed away due to excessive amounts of rain - 3 times what usually falls in summer - and the other bugs mentioned on this page don't survive interior Alaska winters (yet), thank goodness. We usually have lots of vole and moose damage instead, though I have a resident porcupine that loves bramble foliage and raspberries in late summer and fall. My original raspberry patch with many varieties succumbed to the native grass and only Fall Gold can compete with it, so the raspberries I have to report on are Cascade Gold and Cascade Delight, which I planted in a different location. Both were quite productive this year, considering this was only their second year. Interesting to hear about the sensitivity of Cascade Gold to root rot. I guess my loess soils here drain well enough, because even with 16 or so inches of rain this summer, I saw no signs. Black Diamond struggled (new growth turned a golden color) in July when 8 inches fell, but appeared to recover within a few weeks. This is one finicky variety - not tolerant of drought or excess moisture, early season growth and berries (no matter what stage - green, red or black) are super sensitive to frost, and canes are not very vigorous where I live. On the upside, the canes typically have 80%+ survival with minimal protection as long as they are laying on the ground over winter. The blackberries found their way into a cobbler, jam and hard cider, besides being eaten out of hand. Never thought I'd get enough blackberries to get tired of eating them. Satiation only lasted a month, though. Now I'm working on the Marionberry jam. Next year it is wine!