Are You in the Woods? You Should Be...

After March Madness, there's Morel Madness.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're like me 7 years ago when P first mentioned "mushroom hunting."  My family had certainly never hunted mushrooms--we bought them in cartons from Kroger.  And at Kroger, if for some reason you can't find the mushrooms, you can just ask the 17 year-old stock kid to point you in the right direction.  In the woods, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.  And that's what makes it so much fun--that and the fact that they only grow for about a month during the year in Ohio.

There is definitely skill involved--they grow around certain trees, on banks that face a certain direction, etc.  I've learned that a good mushroom hunter doesn't wander around aimlessly in the woods.  And being that tonight was a "school night" P and I didn't waste any time--we went straight to our patches and this is what we found:

A beautiful grey sponge, don't you think?

Here's another grey just peeking through the leaves and growth.  See why they're hard to spot?

This is a black sponge and also my first mushroom of the year!  I would love to say I saw it from afar, but really, I almost stepped on it. 

Since mushrooms usually grow in patches, you always hunt in a circle around your initial find.  I found these two black sponges to the left of the mushroom in the last picture.  Can you find both of them?

Two-fer!  These are two horsetails that P found.  I have no idea how he saw these!

This was our bucket at the end of the night.  We were only there for about an hour, so we were pretty proud of our haul.  (Also because the season is still early and we were on public land.)

That pride lasted until we bumped into the mushroom hunting experts--P's dad and uncle.  This is his dad's bucket only.  Geesh.  That's a haul for a weeknight!

These are the mushrooms after they were cooked using cornmeal and salt.  Delicious!  Imagine only being able to eat one of your favorite foods once a year.  Tonight was a great night.  

Oh, and after the eating, Perry checked me for ticks.  And not in the Brad Paisley type of way--in the real "I probably have ticks on me" type of way.  I did--two, actually.  Hot tip--always wear a baseball cap in the woods--something I forgot tonight.  Eww--those little things got all up in my hair.  Off to shower!