I keep hearing the headline in my head to the tune of “The First Noel” — but here they are, the first morels of the season. It got hot here this weekend — into the eighties — and after our long cold wet spring, I just knew there must be mushrooms out there. These “yellow” ones show up in woodsy copses along the river, then later, the black ones emerge in the mountains. I didn’t find very many yesterday — this is maybe a pound or a pound and a half — but I only hit one spot. Ray and I had a lovely little morning looking for mushrooms — I poked around, doing the mushroom-hunt-Very-Slow-Hike while Ray hunted bunnies and doves. He’s gotten to be such a good boy — he’d disappear for a few minutes, then come circling back when I called. All in all a nice morning, and a little dinner of reheated chicken and rice with a morel cream sauce (cream from my lovely gallon of local milk) was quite delicious.