Three "fun-guy" and one "fun-gal"...

...went out for an evening drive 50 miles to the site of a forest fire that occured last summer, then hiking down a hill, across a creek and up onto the ridge across, in search of a few morel mushrooms, hoping to be lucky enough to find enough to eat with dinner the following evening, prepared to go home empty handed. 

 

At first, we found only "fairies cups and bowls" as E called them, a good sign anyways.  So we made our way past where other pickers had already trompsed through, up into higher, cooler, and wetter ground where the morels were still flushing out.  E found some (peeking out from under the log just to the right of his knees) but mostly wandered around between the other three of us, regaling us with stories of morel monsters, old dwarves living in the woods, mermaids and mermen living on rocks in the creek, and coming away covered head to toe in black charcoal.  Half the time he called the morels "maroons."

R wandered further away yet still within sight (mid picture on the left), or at least within hearing of his repeated whistling of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", and finding a good share of the mushrooms we came home with that night. 

Perhaps, somewhere deep down, he still remembers the year he was one and a half and I brought him out picking with me most days over the course of a couple of weeks? I would time my driving with his naptime and then pick right alongside the road while he slept, then mostly carrying him on my back while keeping him appeased with crackers and juice slowly doled out.  Even then he could toddle along with me for awhile, crawling under some of the downed trees, being carried over the bigger ones, and correctly spotting, and then picking the mushrooms.   One difference is that back then I carried baby wipes in the car so clean up afterwards was easier!

Morels are notorious masters of disguise, even in good light.

Clusters with this many are not as common as we'd like.

Frequently they are found underneath fallen logs and branches where rain water has dripped down and provided enough moisture. Sometimes they have that classic bell shape (left).  Nearly as often they are rather squished and flat from growing out from under a fallen log (right)  Can you spot them in the two pictures above?  Try clicking for a closer look, or here on Flickr. 

As the sun dropped lower in the sky, we turned back, but searching and picking still as we made our way back down the hill to the creek bed (finding that we'd climbed far further than we we'd thought),

crossing on a log jam,

and arriving back at the car by 9:00 pm with our haul of about 5 gallons! (Two full plastic grocery bags bulging to nearly their breaking point are not pictured here.)  More than enough for dinner.  More than I found in the entire two weeks I'd picked 7 years ago.

There is plenty to share and eat while they're fresh, sauteed with wine and butter (or marg. or olive oil).  The rest we dry, and later reconstitute with water, making sure to save enough for turkey stuffing at Thanksgiving. 

Such abundance.  Such treasure.  Such beauty.  Such fun together.

More morel hunting adventures from the weekend to come...

Comments

[TD wool design]

wow!
wonderful day! lucky you. and great to have for your holiday. it will be fun to remember in November!

[Sarah R]

My mom taught high school in Orange County, Virginia and one year one of her student asked her if she liked "merkles" 'cos if she did he was going "merkle huntin'" that weekend and would bring her some. With some more talking, she realized that he was talking about morels and called them "miracles." So there's another name for them.

[cloth.paper.string]

fantastic haul! i can't quite fathom five gallons. we founded about 15 individual mushrooms last year and were in heaven.

enjoy now, and too in your thanksgiving stuffing -- really a great way to give thanks to the abundance that is present if you too are present.

[cloth.paper.string]

fantastic haul! i can't quite fathom five gallons. we founded about 15 individual mushrooms last year and were in heaven.

enjoy now, and too in your thanksgiving stuffing -- really a great way to give thanks to the abundance that is present if you too are present.

[fleur]

Beautiful harvest! How lucky ;-) Also I take time to congratulate you with all the beautiful natural dyes you made lately...

[Ella]

this is the best adventure ever! i love it.

[Michelle]

Mushroom envy over here.

Still thinking about dyeing with fungus -- not morels, of course.

[lolly]

Amazing! i got a book about mushroom hunting and i haven't been out to do it yet. this looks so wonderful! :)

[Lizz]

Well done!

The burn sites make for such good photos. And sooty children!

[Berlinswhimsy]

YUUUUM! It looks like you were had great success!

We found our largest haul this year. And we always look in a burn, too. And when we bring them home, we have the same discussion---do we like morels or chantrelles better?! Hmmmm....

[Jennifer]

Wow! I always learn so much when I visit your site. I am duly impressed with the haul and awed by the thought of a lovely family outing with a shared experience together. I confess to clicking on the pictures to 'embiggen' them in my search for potentially lost children (I found him!) and to see if I would make it as a morel hunter. I'm curious to see how you dry out the morels... another post for another day.

[Dawn]

Very cool!

I have such fond memories of morel picking with my grandpa when I was a kid :)

Hes gone now, and I haven't had any since he cooked some for me when I was 12. I doubt I could eat them again, with out thinking of him :)

[ange]

I love reading about your adventures. There are a bunch of interesting mushrooms up near our cabin in northern MN and my daughter and I are going to pluck some and do that trick with the paper next time we go up. Thanks for blogging about such wonderful ideas!