Open Season On The Missouri Sea Sponge

Morrel mushrooms grow 'round these here parts, which is cool. That means free, beefy shrooms for the table AND yet another Easter Egg type hunt and the adults can partake in it. We really look forward to these few days of shroom hunting every year. My grandson Haven, Merlin (the smartest dog in the world) and I are the hard-core hunters. Merlin has the nose, so he zeros in on them, I have the birds eye-view so I'm the spotter and Haven picks and totes since he's close to the ground and has thumbs.

You may be thinking that a four-year-old and a big mutt might not be the best folks to take into the delicate habitat of the Missouri Sea Sponge, but my boys are unique. They move slowly and deliberately, carefully eyeballing every inch of ground before committing sole to earth. That site alone is a rare treat. Picture it, boy, three-feet tall, Spiderman attire, bug print baseball cap (on account o' he likes bugs...a lot), meticulously picking his way on tiptoes in his Nike hikers with a Blue Bunny ice cream bucket and a sunflower walking stick (the old stalks make great pokey/walking sticks for squirts), while the ever-faithful Merlin (big yellow/brindle/whatever with a Science Diet physique, a city reject of questionable decent) mimics my gate fanatically, like the little pooch stepping over cracks in As Good As It Gets, with Jack Nicholson, like every obsessive compulsives canine should.

It being the first productive day and not getting out until dusk, I feel we did okay finding 16 Morrel, one tick and no snakes. Tomorrow I won't be able to get past dinner time without deep frying our finds and serving them up with a sloppy pile of ranch dressing. I've never seen anyone eat as many of those things as that scrawny kid can in one sitting, so it will just be a tease, a tasty one.
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4/9/2005 1:7 AM