The Elusive Morel Mushroom
It's that time again for hunting the Elusive Morel Mushroom! Saturday was a beautiful day! Yard work was on the agenda, but my youngest son, Will, had offered to take me mushroom hunting on Sunday. Morel mushrooms were on my mind and had been all week. There were reports that people were finding them in abundance over in southern Indiana. On a post from last year, you can find how we cook mushrooms ◄here.
Saturday was rather quiet and uneventful here. I pulled weeds and worked in flower beds all day. Dave was on Lake Erie fishing for walleye this weekend. Will was helping get things ready at the campground with Alex's family. While some people might think yard work is drudge work, on beautiful quiet days like this, I enjoy it. After a shower and a glass of wine, I went to bed.
My alarm was set for 6:00 Sunday morning. I jumped up and got ready for the day, sporting a pair of Ralph Lauren jeans, denim jacket, beige button-up blouse, and a pair of walking shoes. It was a little chilly. The jacket probably would not be needed for long. Hair and makeup were done, (I don't go anywhere without makeup), I was ready and waiting for Will at 7:00.
Will arrived, ready to go, and we were on our way! When we arrived at the destination, we parked, jumped out, and hit the woods.
Incredibly, two minutes into the woods, we found four nice mushrooms. We usually skipped over searching this area, we had never found them here before. We considered that, as people left the woods, perhaps some of the mushroom spores had dropped. The rule is to use mesh bags to hold your mushrooms, which allows the spores to be spread throughout the woods.
Finding those right at the edge of the woods created an excitement in both of us and an expectation of many more mushrooms. We didn't see any other people in the woods either.
We headed to the area where we had usually found the morel mushrooms, searching the ground the entire way. We had some strong winds earlier this spring and we were amazed at how many trees were down, huge trees! It was kind of hard to recognize the spots where we typically find the mushrooms!
We found lots of Dutchman's breeches. These are the cutest little flowers! They are found in woods in North America and are the wild version of bleeding hearts. They don't get very big, about 6-12 inches tall and 6-12 inches wide. They were pretty abundant in the woods, but we weren't seeing any more mushrooms.
We saw lots of this pale lavender wild phlox. The delicate little five-petaled flowers on the delicate leaved plants were spread throughout the woods, too.
We saw lots of these wild bluebells all over the woods, but no more mushrooms.
Clearly, they are up now, but it was apparent that other people had been in the woods hunting for them. Maybe they had better luck than we did.
There was an abundance of the Fiddlehead Fern, too. These apparently, are edible, but we have never had them. Have you ever eaten these?
These cheerful yellow wild poppies were scattered through the woods.
We saw lots of these Wild Bleeding Hearts.
A little disheartened, Will commented on that tease of four perfect mushrooms as we entered the woods. We laughed but were disappointed we hadn't found any more.
After two and a half hours, we decided to head home. We had just shut the garage door and Dave arrived back from his trip. His interest was piqued by the few mushrooms that we had found and wanted to know if we wanted to go back. Well, we did.
By the time we got back to the woods, there were a lot more people in the woods hunting for mushrooms. A gentleman coming out of the woods had no luck at all, but he had found a few deer ticks. A family coming out had found a few mushrooms. We still had hope.
After searching for about a half hour, Dave spotted a nice sized one. As I approached to take a picture, I saw another one just about the same size. Being built closer to the ground, sometimes I have an advantage!
We searched the regular spots again to no avail, but it is still early in the season. Spending the day with my youngest son was so enjoyable, even if we didn't find so many. We will most assuredly be back another day. We have not given up on this season's elusive morel mushroom!
