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We failed to find any morels, but spring wildflowers were in abundance.
These are shooting stars, prolific in Southern Oregon forests. |
A friend stopped by the house a couple days ago with—and I am not kidding—a five-gallon bucket overflowing with freshly harvested wild morel mushrooms that he found on the hillside visible from our home and just a few-minutes walk down the road and up the hill.
I've been staring at and admiring that hillside for three decades and have tromped around up there many times. I just failed to see the terrain as a mushroom super mercado. The friend, who used to be our next-door neighbor, gave us a few morels for
dinner** before heading home to process his windfall and add it to the
40 pounds of morels already in his freezer! (Yes, the exclamation point is warranted.) Mushroom envy clutched my throat, and also mushroom chagrin. How could we have lived here so long without taking advantage of this free-for-the-picking bonanza? We were about to find out.
PK and I headed for the forest armed with small knives to cut the mushrooms and mesh bags to carry them—big bags, as the vision of that five-gallon bucket still danced in our heads. Rather than our familiar hillside, we tackled an area, also visible from our garden, where we often hike for exercise and a "forest fix." It's a steep hillside on BLM land, and also an historic gold mining area. We poked around in the typical Southern Oregon mixed madrone, oak, pine, fir and manzanita forest for two hours. We did not see even one morel. Not one!
Kicking around near a madrone tree, a favorite mushroom habitat supposedly, I called a sharp-eyed veteran morel hunter who I have witnessed spotting roadside mushrooms from a moving vehicle. What were we doing wrong? She confessed to many fruitless morel hunts, and reminded me that "hunting" is an operative word. You don't just go out there and expect easy pickings. Huh? Oh well. There was plenty to enjoy, and I can think of worse ways to spend two hours. Today, we are going to try the hunting grounds of our former neighbor and hope that bastard didn't pick every last one.
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| The road has been closed to vehicles for years. It ends at an old mine. |
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| Scarlet fritillaria growing and glowing trailside. |
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| PK looking for mushroom bulges beneath the madrones. Yes, the trees slant downhill. |
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| Manzanita bush in blossom. |
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| A colorful stand of Indian Warrior, one of many wildflower displays we enjoyed on our fruitless mushroom hunt. |
**Post about a yummy morel and asparagus stir fry is in the works.
