Rain, Morels, Yard and Whatnot

On Monday I went hiking at Duck Egg with the intent of searching for Morel Mushrooms.

Instead, I found some amazing bluebell fields.

I also found False Morels.

Lots of them! All over the place!

They are pretty interesting and sort of wickedly cool.

 

They are different from Morels in that they are solid through and through and not hollow like a Morel is.

Hiking in Duck Egg is a crazy sort of adventure ... that is, if you can make sense of the signs:

The signs are getting better than what they used to be though:

The trails basically circle around the dam which protects areas from flooding. The altitude changes from the ridge to the valley are about 300 feet. Trails zig and zag up and down steep hillsides. The horse trails are really quite wonderful and will make the equine work hard. Hubby and I used to ride Duck Egg quite a bit.

I did find 3 Morels the next day in our woods.

They hide! Actually, because of the garlic mustard 'invasion' they are getting pretty hard to find:

With all the rain and the warmth, the plants are growing with great gusto and soon it will be very hard to find the delicious fungi.

The last few years were too dry or too hot for good Morels to appear. The conditions have to be just so and their are quite a few other factors and conditions that have to be met for them to flourish too.

I do like Morels, but I won't dedicate my days to hunting for them as I have so many other duties to attend to.

I went out to the Meadow to look under the old apple trees for Morels and I found a broken Turkey Egg. So they are nesting right now. 
 

I stopped by the Hawthorne Trees to see how they were doing. They are flowering now. One of the trees still has reddish leaves with buds, but I found this one in full bloom. Note the thorn! 

I still think these are amazingly beautiful trees.

Duty keeps calling in the form of mowing the yard. Hubby has an old zero turn mower that has a deck that has to be flipped in order to clean it properly.

We did get it flipped and it is always a total B--tch to get it flipped and back together properly. With his lack of ability for doing any heavy work, it is proving to be near impossible to get it done. I've cleaned it and now it has been sitting for 3 days not ... quite put back together.

I have a little self propelled mower and have been doing piece by piece mowing when I can between rains and foggy mornings. 

I have a notion to just run a temporary fence over certain sections of the yard and let the equine do the work at least for this growth period.

I did that in the 'lane' which is a hilly grassy lane between two pastures. The gals picked it pretty clean and then I mowed what was left. I have hoof impressions in the lane but the grass is no longer knee high.

...Hey...it has been done before!

Photos from many years ago.  2006 and 2008. I think hubby was in the hospital at these times and I couldn't keep up with mowing because I worked full time and drove to Madison to see hubby on my days off.

However...I learned not to hang laundry out when they were in the yard...

The yard never was worse for wear and they did a good job.

A large perfectly mowed yard is very underrated. I guess I shouldn't complain though, last year we mowed the yard 4 times all summer.

The rain and frustration are welcome.

Meanwhile in the forest...

I took a short walk yesterday after mowing some patches of long shaggy grass.

I still haven't totally unpacked from our mini trip and put everything away. Since Spring waits for no one, I decided to get to the forest and see what was happening.

I found this Rue Anemone. However, looking at it closer, it may be a False Rue Anemone.

This was the first one I found in our woods. In other areas of our county they are already blanketing the floor of certain forest areas.

Because of our steep hills and valleys that face different directions, some areas warm up faster than others.

I found this in a cooler part of our forest. The hillside faces north east which gets a glimpse of morning light but that is it.

 

I walked over to the one spot in our forest that always seems to be ahead of other areas. For the past 20 years I've always found an early small Morel or two in this area.

I found two spots where Maidenhair Ferns were starting to come up. They were not emerging anywhere else.

This spot faces south and in the spring gets nearly all the sunlight and warmth for nearly the whole day. It is the one area that seems to always be slightly ahead of other areas of the forest.

I did not find any Morels or even any signs of them. This Fungi caught my eye though. Its common name is: False Morel. Scientific name: Gyromitra esculenta. 
This mushroom contains the neurotoxin called Gyromitrin. There are rumors that the neurotoxin can be cooked out of it, but I wouldn't take the chance.

I do find their odd and sometimes twisted shapes to be interesting looking though.

I headed home after striking out with any Grey Morels. I came up from the creek and found these Virginia Pinks flooding the top of the hill under the budding trees.

In the Spring, I try to get out and find every ephemeral flower I can. 

I still have Bloodroot, Dutchman's Breeches, Hepatica, and Trout Lilies to find.

Perhaps I need to get my laundry and grocery shopping done first? I don't know why those mundane tasks like to get in the way of all the fun I can have in the forest.

Charlie and Rich seem to be still recovering from our weekend trip.