Mushrooms Are Everywhere

A couple of days ago Samuel, Jonah and I were walking through the woods looking for mushrooms. We usually wait until the first of April to start looking. We had found three or four. We wanted to find enough to have with our dinner.

I came to a creek where I had to jump over to prevent soaking my shoes! There were a couple dead trees. I jumped over the creek and was about to jump over the dead trees when on the ground I saw two mushrooms right beside each other! I looked around to see if there were any more near that area. There I saw three more. Morels grow best in part shade but may be found growing in sunnier spots earlier in the season.

I called Jonah and Samuel who were looking for them too. Then I picked the five mushrooms that were close together. When they got to me, we started looking for more mushrooms. We found forty-nine of them all around the same stretch.

Mushrooms grow best in cool, moist weather, when the temperature is around 60 to 70 degrees, and the nights are in the low 40s. When the season is dry and hot, morels quickly wither away, but if the climate is just right, they will get to ripeness and be ready to be harvested by 10-15 days.

Most of the mushrooms that we picked were small but there were a few of them that were pretty big. Jonah found one that was ten inches long. One of the biggest mushrooms ever found was 15 inches tall, after being cut. It was 14 inches around, and 1.9 pounds!

After we found all the mushrooms, we brought them up to the house to cut them all in half. Then we put them in a container with salt water, to kill the bugs. We stuck them in the refrigerator to keep cool for a couple of days. After we knew that all the bugs were dead, we took them out and drained the salt water. Then we got out the skillet to fry them in. Morel mushrooms are high in both fiber and iron and contain a considerable amount of manganese which helps weak bones. We started to fry them. They smelled super good.

I am glad that we found enough to have with our dinner. I probably would not have found those mushrooms if I had not jumped over the creek. I am looking forward to next year when we hunt for more. I will make sure that I look in the same spot where we found the mess of mushrooms.

~Isaac