Friday, May 8, 2009

The Morel Hunters

Meet the morel hunters. Me... (looking tough enough to split the rock wall with my knife and possibly lacking regular morals).... And Bort...(looking like a moonshiner mountain man who knows whats up but don't care)...
Morels (not to be confused with religious morals) are edible mushrooms that are really popular to hunt in the woods and old orchards, but can be difficult to find because they are so camouflaged into their natural setting. They blend right in with the dead leaves and decay on the forest floor - but once you actually spot one you begin to spot them all around the area. They have a look alike morel mushroom that is slightly poisonous, but you can identify it by the fact that it's head pops off too easy as if it's not attached at all. Real morels are in tact, all in one piece... just like the puritans hope our morals are too. :)You can see in this picture above how well the morels fit into their environment - if their noodle looking stem gets long enough though it makes it much easier to spot the seemingly invisible mushroom. Below you can see how large some get, although in the patch we found they ranged in size a great deal. Bort cooked them up in a frying pan to eat - but I declined to eat any on the crack pot premise that a Chinese Med doctor once told me to only eat mushrooms growing on trees for my particular disposition. Once they hit the frying pan they looked like they melted and it was not appetizing anyhow - but let me tell ya, if i was starving I would gobble up any man's morals.... I mean morels.
XOXO

4 comments:

  1. It's possible that your crackpot theory was safe from violation (either that or you were looking for an out... I don't blame ya). Morels live symbiotically with trees, and push their way up from spores within the roots of certain types. So technically, morels grow on trees. And by the way, there is exactly only one play-on-word available from the morel/moral thing. You're not allowed more than one usage in a post.

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  2. Hey gratuitous ...
    knowing that they grow on tree roots is an awesome tip - makes more sense now about the placement of where they are growing.
    And I know, i play with morals far too much. :)

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  3. gra·tu·i·tous (gr-t-ts, -ty-)
    adj.
    1. Given or granted without return or recompense; unearned.
    2. Given or received without cost or obligation; free.
    3. Unnecessary or unwarranted; unjustified: gratuitous criticism.

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  4. FYI, Anonymous is actually me, Gabrielle. I don't have a blogger account. :)

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