The hunt is on

For the tasty, delectable fungus known as the morel mushroom. Oh be still my heart, as my eyes roll back in my head from the memory of these delicious shrooms in a kettle of mushroom asparagus soup! Ahhh, oh so good. Or, you can enjoy them fried or stuffed, nummy

Before I moved to Montana the only mushroom I had eaten and enjoyed was the shiitake. I have a good friend in Wisconsin, Trish, that grows gourmet shiitakes, she sells nationwide. As a going away gift, Trish gave me a shiitake log of my own. According to Trish in the right conditions, the log will grow mushrooms for five or six years. It is dry in my corner of Montana, and to date I only harvested shrooms from my log while I was driving to Montana on my move here.

The other day, friends and I went to the higher elevations to begin the hunt for morels. There was still snow in the area we went to. An area I had hunted morels in when I first moved here last year. At that time, some of the slopes I had been on were so steep, you only had to reach out to pick the mushroom, instead of bending over. While that may sound like a back saver, I had started to compare myself to a mountain goat.

Back to the other day's hunt. I am disappointed to report we did not see a single morel. We did see a huge black bear, two cow elk, several white tail deer, and an abundance of other varieties of mushrooms, but I don't know how edible or poisonous they were. Hopefully the higher elevations will get some rain, and the next time we go, we'll come home with buckets full of those tasty, tasty morels. I'll keep you posted, and post a picture of my bounty on here.