It had been raining on and off for about two days. Baby and I hadn’t been able to get out of the house much, and it was starting to show. I found an excuse for us to go out via a trip to the library and the bank. The library didn’t have what I wanted. The baby didn’t want to get back in her car seat. Cranky, cranky, cranky.
But then, I saw it.
I don’t even know what made me look over in that direction, but pulled up at a stoplight, I looked across and saw a stump on the corner covered in pale tan mushrooms. A surge of adrenalin kicked in all at once.
I managed to pull out my phone, text “MUSHROOMS!” to my foraging mentor, cross lanes of traffic, and turn right (when I had started in the left hand lane). There was nowhere to park, so I just flipped a u-turn and pulled the car half way up onto the sidewalk and parked it. I turned off the engine and flipped on the flashers, texting my friend the address of the mushrooms as I did so.
“I’ll be right back!” I shouted at the baby, as I grabbed my phone and sprinted across the street, in the rain. I’m sure I looked like a complete fool, this crazy woman, crouching in the mud and taking pictures of a tree stump in the rain.
But they didn’t know I was looking at my first ever flush of oyster mushrooms.
Wendy and I headed back two days later. The mushrooms were a little rain soaked, but still edible, so we harvested almost the whole batch.
Two giant bags and 6.6 pounds of mushrooms later, and I’d experienced my first big score as a mushroom hunter. Now I just have to decide what to do with them all!!!
