I'm Back!!!

Sorry that I have been silent for awhile but we took a little trip and then when we returned, I promptly came down with a bad cold which I am still fighting.  But I wanted to share with you all the beautiful place we visited here in North Idaho just 30 miles south of the U.S./Canadian border.  It's a jewel of a lake called Priest Lake.

 

We stayed at a state park campground called Indian Creek Campground.

We had a campfire which we cooked our dinner over.

Of course we had homemade cheddar brats.

 

The fish weren't biting at all.

 

But the morels were!

The Selkirks east of the lake still have some snow.

 

Can you tell which peak is called Chimney Rock?

Emma never got tired of playing in the sand.

A Different Kind of Hunt

During the last week of April to about mid-May, depending on the altitude, is prime morel mushroom hunting time in North Idaho. We get so excited about morel season. If you're a mushroomer too, you are probably out there right now walking around in the woods scanning the ground for these little treasures.

We do most of our morel hunting on our 20 acres and our neighbor's adjacent 60 acres. We do have some favorite local public hunting grounds, too. But of course they are a secret! Here's my hubby and daughter after being caught "poaching" morels from our neighbors acreage last night. Actually we all jumped into the Kubota and he drove us to another great picking site on his land. What a great neighbor!
We get to see a lot of nature when we are out scouring the land for morels. Some of the flowers that are out at the same time are triliums, dog-tooth lilies, shooting stars and lady slipper orchids.
Another type of mushroom that we like to pick in the spring are coral mushrooms. They look a lot like a cauliflower and it's easy to harvest literally pounds of coral mushrooms if you find a good area for them. They are big and much easier to see that morels. Can you spot the morels in this picture? Sneaky little buggers!
Here's what we ended up harvesting last evening and we will be going out again tonight to see if we can find more. In a later post I will share my Cream of Morel Soup recipe but for now I will recommend slicing some morels rolling the slices in a little flour, salt and pepper then frying them in melted butter...YUM!
But remember, never ever eat any wild mushroom that you have deemed edible just from identifying from a picture in a book or on the internet! You need a knowledgeable living, breathing human being that has harvested mushrooms for a while to take you out mushroom hunting and show you what is safe to harvest and eat. I took classes at the local community college that included field trips where the instructor showed us what was safe in our local forest.