My First Morel Hunt

One of the very first morels I spotted

It has been at least 2 years since I went on a mushroom hunt. The job at the school has been a social life killer.  I often felt too tired to go on a group foray. Lately my energy level must has gone up with all the hiking I have been doing. I am also feeling more relaxed with school operation in general. Last week I spontaneously decided to respond to a fellow MSSF's member's invitation to join a group morel hunt up north (Sorry, I am not going to share the location). We decided to leave at 5:30 am on Saturday morning for an early start, spend a night camping out, then continue hunting on Sunday.

My first morel jackpot

I had a pretty good idea what morels look like, but after a two year hiatus, I needed some time to get my mushroom hunting eyes back. The couple I hitched a ride with were super sweet. They pointed out several morels, so I could get a really good image in my head. Pretty soon I was spotting them all over the place between the pine needles. We were all walking, looking down, bending down, and cutting a lot. I made sure to shove morels to Kelsey's nose and kept telling her to go look for them. On the second, she was walking around sniffing next to tree trunks and the ground. I actually found a good size flattened morel in front of her paw!

Kelsey snoozing with a big bag of morels above her

For dinner we sauteed some fresh morels in butter in addition to some awesome home made spicy chili and fresh tortilla. For second dinner (we were all hobbits for one night), we had pasta in habanero pasta sauce. Just by coincidence, we were all hot heads! Kelsey had a lot of fun hanging out with the other dogs in the group.  At the end of our grand morel hunt, we have picked at least 10 pounds of morels, and we each got a share.  More photos from are on the Wild Mushrooms photo album. I can't wait to do it again!

Another big find