Good News and Bad News

Sunday we hunted seven hours, walking no less than eight miles. I picked more than three pounds of pristine morels.

Sounds great, but for that particular place it is much less than average.

No, I'm not going to tell you where we were. All I'm allowed to say is that we were on the banks of the Missouri River not too far from Mineola.

Today we went to secret area #7A, a place we know like our own backyards.

I picked two morels. Two.

We walked through the rain and the sticky mud. We endured the cold and the thick, brushy mix of poison ivy, wild locust and spiny vines. We walked deep and kept our focus for the first five or six miles. In the end, the three of us may have picked a little more than a pound. All three of us are morel-crazed, forest-seasoned foraging freaks. If there were morels in those woods we would have brought them out.

I picked two.

Two.

On the positive end of the trip. We saw a nice variety of wildlife. We saw many bunnies, a hen and chick woodcock (we call them timber doodles), deer and we were circled by buzzards after giving in to the inevitable and taking a seat on a comfy log. That said, I shot my photos with my cell phone. I can keep a cell phone dry in a pocket, but if I ruin a EOS1D Mark III in the rain I'll probably lose my job.

An interesting note: 15 years ago newspapers were paying $12,000 for Kodak DCS series digital cameras that shot 2 mp photos. Now my cheap cell phone does 2 mp photos.