I Have a Touch of the Madness

 

For the last few years, I have not had a lot of success when it comes to hunting morel mushrooms. In fact I'm pretty sure I blogged that perhaps last year would be my last year. But every spring, about this time of year, especially with idle time on my hands, I find myself fighting the morel madness as I call it and it doesn't take my heart/stomach long to convince my brain that perhaps this time will be THE time when I pick a mother lode of morels under a mushroom machine producing tree. And so with idle time on my hands this Tuesday, and a wife conveniently unemployed, we made the drive out to the farm to enjoy a walk if nothing else. 

We found a small mess of grey morel mushrooms, all under elms that had been deceased for a good number of years and no longer mushroom machines. (Note to newer readers, a recently dead elm can produce as many as 50+ mushrooms around it's roots for a year or two after it's death and hence my term of mushroom machine.) We had to probably walk three miles to find that small mess but it was a pleasant day and we didn't have any other obligations. 

Don't be fooled by the size of the photos above which makes them appear much bigger than they actually were. This being earlier than I can ever recall finding them, is early in their short growing season and they were very tiny. Some of them were completely covered by leaves and grass still and only a small flash of light grey brain looking fungus tipped me off that there might be a morel under there somewhere. I'm sure there were many more that we never found due to it being so early in the season and them being so small. But it is promising that perhaps this season will be a bountiful one. (See how the madness messes with my head!)

Above is a long deceased elm tree that once was a mushroom machine that I picked around 50 mushrooms underneath it maybe four or five years ago. I didn't find anything under it the last couple years but found two small grey mushrooms under it this outing. Like a dog that treed a racoon once years ago, I keep looking under it every time I'm near... just in case.  Just in case paid off this year.

I also found lots of other mushrooms, which I didn't pick, and which is always a good sign that conditions are favorable.

I also found signs of killings which I do every year.

Occasionally when I'm not looking at my feet and look up, I see signs of deer hunters that will populate these wooded draws in the fall, fortunately longer after morel season has ceased.

This is a sign that deer hunters will be looking for that their season will be bountiful.

I'm not likely to stave off the morel madness now that I will have a taste of these delectable fungi so I'll probably be returning perhaps this weekend when the grey morels should hit their peak and maybe their larger cousin the yellow morels will start popping up. Depending on the weather, it could all be over in a couple weeks or maybe stretch out to three or four weeks if we continue to receive timely moisture.