‘Shroom Season

As I sit here looking out the window I see a robin running around in the yard and I know it’s almost time again. Time again for that yearly ritual of tromping in the woods looking for that elusive tasty morel mushroom.

It stared for me back in the spring of 1971, I had just moved into a five acre farm (as my parents called it) in the out skirts of

Joe. Our fence line was the city limits which soon became annexed for taxes and a new middle school to take place of the strawberry farm where we always partook of a few on our way home from school each day. The excuse we used for the farmer was we were making sure he still had the best berries around.

But to get back on topic, I was just two days into our new abode when a knock on the back door produced two scraggly hick-looking kids wanting to know if I could come out and go hunting with them. My grandfather had given me a 22 and a 12-gauge and I was ready to go when one of the boys laugh and said, “You aint gonna need them for what we’re gonna hunt.”

So being for the West Coast and East Coast most of my life I asked, “How are we going to kill them then?”

They both then started laughing and I was about to get mad when they started to tell me about the best hunting ever to do. They told me about the morel mushrooms that only once a year come up from the ground when the moonlight is right and you have to be very quiet and sneak up on them and grab them and put in a sack.

Ok I said I like going into the woods, I’ve done that all my life in the scouts

So, I yell at mom that I’m going morel mushroom hunting, and she says be careful Off we go. I grabbed a bread sack after dumping the bread on the counter.

The two new hunting buddies first tell me about the pitfalls of chasing this wary morsel, when we get to my fence line. The taller of the two boys says, “We have to cross here but the old man who owns this land don’t like us here so we have to run fast to the next fence and jump it quick.”

We look every which way and off we go. We jump the next fence and I feel like James Bond on one of his mission to get Dr. No.

“Ok, we start looking from here on out,” the shorter of the two tells me now.

It’s my turn to pipe up and I do, “Ok what do these morels look like?”

The taller one quips up, “They can get pretty big my Dad says, so big you can trip over them.” Right then I knew this is the first time they ever went morel hunting also. But I’ve seen mushrooms before and from the sketchy details these two are giving me we give it a go.

To shorten the story some, we walked what we considered miles but probably was only yards and didn’t find anything so we decided to go home. But on the way home we didn’t stop looking. So when I pulled myself up a tree root from the creek bed on the last patch of ground before the forbidden land, there right in front of my eyes was a morel mushroom. I yelled I got one as I grabbed it with both hands and wouldn’t let go even when both boys wanted to touch it.

So from then until now I’ve been hooked on the morel. Be careful when you go into the woods. Research the morel because I’ve found in my numerous years there are poisonous look a likes. Also there are snakes and hide holes and out dangers, but for a dad and his son (and grandson now) the time is well spent hunting this wonder of the woods. By the time you read this I will probably already be enjoying a plate of ‘shrooms and crappie. So have fun its, good exercise and great family bonding time.

Also wives sometimes like to go so invite them, also daughters. But remember if you see me and ask where I go hunting and I say in the woods don’t take it too hard because nobody gives up their secret hunting spots. Until next spring: good luck hunting.