morel mushrooms | tworockchronicles

My mother loved pears, and I inherited that from her. This past summer would have been our best pear harvest. She’s gone, but I fully intended to enjoy the harvest for her, because of her. We have four pear trees, three to span the season and one as a pollinating guarantee. Only two bear, so far. The best of the two is the earliest of the season… those pears ripen in late August. I’d been watching that tree, easy enough as the dooryard orchard is in the same enclosure as the vegetable garden. The tree is still fairly small, narrow and upright. I watched, waiting for the pears to be ripe.

One morning I ventured out, sure that there’d be some pears for the picking. But there were none. And I mean—none. There had been 21 pears on that tree, waiting to be picked, but this morning there were none. My first assumption was that a deer had breached the fence—but deer are not tidy foragers and there were no pears or pear bits on the ground. I was stunned—so I check the second pear tree—though its fruit wouldn’t be ready for another month. Most of it was there, but someone, or something, had broken some of the lower branches. They were wrenched from the tree, ripping some of the bark away from the trunk. I summoned Rick.

Together, like amateur sleuths we examined the damage. This was no animal. Some human intruder had ravaged our pears. When the late ripening tree didn’t easily yield her fruit, they pulled at it so hard they broke branches. I felt like weeping. Rick looked further and found the place at the back of the fence where the deer netting had been pulled away. Not that they couldn’t have come around to the house side and just walked in the gate. We were shocked. It’s not like our fence is some fortress of security, it’s just t-posts with wires supporting deer netting and rabbit fencing—we put it up to fend off the deer and the rabbits. But still, it takes some kind of gall to break into an enclosed garden area and steal produce. I checked, and, yes, there were tomatoes missing, too. But mostly those 21 pears.

Come spring we’re putting up a new, sturdier fence. We bought real fence posts, tall and sturdy, and there will be heavy duty welded wire. If they want in, they’ll need to bring bolt-cutters. We debate whether we need to put a lock on the man-gate. It seems crazy to consider a lock on a garden gate. We grow enough that we could share, if anyone were to ask. Back in Two Rock we grew enough for everyone on the farm, and then donated tubs and tubs of produce to the Food Bank. But nobody asked.

This is a new, and ugly kind of intrusion. Friends have warned me. One came home to find a trio of “summer folk” helping themselves to the roses in her garden. They wanted to keep the severed roses—but she escorted them off the property with a shotgun. They threatened to call the police, but she assured them that that was her next call—and that her husband was a deputy sheriff. Another friend had frames of honey lifted right out of her hives! (That’s some brave thief!) And when we had workers on site, they raided our patch of morel mushrooms. Rick discovered it and made them give them back. Folks seem to think that everything is for the taking.

It was Robert Frost who first wrote that good fences make good neighbors. It’s about respecting boundaries, even, or especially when, working together. We have good neighbors, But times are changing, people are more mobile and local mores are breaking down.

We have suspects, some guys who were working on a neighbor’s house to get it ready for sale. They’d shown an unusual level of interest in my gardening. Thankfully they are not our neighbors—but we cannot prove anything or be sure of anyone. In the meantime we’ll upgrade the fence and keep an eye out. There’s not much else we can do.

The Morel of the Story…

A.V. Walters–

We found another one! So now you see why morel mushrooms are safer to eat than most. They’re so distinct looking, it would be hard to pick them wrong.

I am a middle child. What pleases me, may not be what pleases others. Middle children learn to like what they have—and not too visibly—or their older siblings will take that, too.

When I picked the property, I knew that it, too, was an odd duck. The “back forty” is too steep to develop or farm. Only the forest holds those steep, glacial sands to the planet. The front “panhandle” is slightly sloping down to the road, which was the reason for including it in the parcel. The property needed road access. Across the road is the swamp. At the low end, the swamp end, the soil won’t perc, so you cannot build there. It’s lovely bottomland, but it’s also the low spot where one can expect killing frosts. A neighbor planted fruit trees down there, and didn’t understand why, after a few years, they all died. Wet feet. The water table is so high that the poor trees literally drowned

The sellers waxed philosophic about the beauty, the views, the “potential.” They were realtors, had any of that been true, they’d have kept it. Not that there aren’t views, especially up on the hills, especially in the winter, when the leaves are gone. But you cannot build to take advantage of those views because the steep hills (and winter conditions) preclude any possibility of a road or driveway. The property is beautiful—it’s just not marketable for development. Oh, and the sellers told us, there were mushrooms.

Until last year, I’d never seen any mushrooms. Morels have a short season and, though I’d been here in May, I never saw them. Last year, I saw a bunch of them. They were in a plastic bag, dangling from the waistband of a mushroom poacher who was walking our south ridge. We ran the poachers off—but the morels went with them. I didn’t have the fortitude or attitude to demand that they surrender their bounty.

This year we’ve been regularly stalking our slopes, eyes glued to the ground. (So much for the view.) It’s been a dry spring, and cool, so much so that the leaf litter has been crunchy underfoot. Morels like warm and wet. We searched and searched to no avail. My sister, 150 miles south of here, went morel hunting several weekends in a row and found hundreds. She told me I just didn’t know how to look. Over and over again, she said, “You have to get low, they’re tough to see.” They are. And, they are especially difficult to see when they aren’t there.

This past week, we’ve had heavy rains. So, despite the fact that the season is technically over, Rick and I went for a last stroll to check for “shrooms.” We also figured we could harvest some wild leeks, “les ramps” to the gourmet crowd. For best flavor, you harvest them late—just as their leaves yellow. We weren’t twenty steps into the forest when Rick found the first mushroom—right in the middle of the path! We spent an hour or so—poking around, digging ramps and collecting beautiful morels. There weren’t many mushrooms, enough for a wonderful dinner. We had sautéed wild leeks and morels over penne—with thyme, and just enough goat yogurt for creaminess and tang. It was a feast for kings—as good as any served in this foodie-snob restaurant capital.

Maybe we’ll get an extended season. This will guarantee a few more hikes into the back forty, even though we’re really busy. Not bad for a couple of middle kids.

Sorry, no pics. We were so excited that we ate the evidence.

Good Fences Make…

The Morel of the Story…