Morel mushrooms: Hunt, hunt, pick

Morel mushrooms are fairly new to me. I never ate them or recall hearing about them until well into adulthood.

Just google “morel mushrooms” and you’ll see what a fanatical world this is. In value and popularity, they are akin to the beloved French truffle.

Well, not quite. I’ve seen morel mushrooms for sale at $36-66 per pound. French truffles can go for hundreds, even thousands, of dollars per pound.

I have had French truffles IN things, like the liver paté with truffles running through the middle we received for a gift last year. Yum. I’ll bet that cost a bit. Whatever the comparison, all I know is I LOVE them both, and morel mushrooms are here in Michigan. So I’ll “make do” with morels.

Our first April on the farm (2004) Don found a handful of morels near the pond in the back property. I found none.

Our second April here (2005) Don found another "handful" in the side yard under some trees, but each mushroom was almost as big as my hand! Again, I found none.

Both years Don soaked them in salted water, dried them off, then ASAP (within a day or two) floured and sautéd them in butter with lots of salt and pepper. A festival for the taste buds! (Sorry, Amy, I know you don’t like mushrooms! Bummer!) Finding only a few on our property and not wanting to pay $45/lb., we really savored this treat. These were my first morels to eat!

Morels soaking in salted water for a few minutes to remove dirt and critters

This week, the time they start popping up in Southern Michigan, we began the morel hunt on our 5 acres. No luck for several days though we looked in several areas. Then last evening, after a very cool night (28F), we went out to look, not really expecting anything since the best conditions are for night temps above 40F. So imagine my delight when I stepped on a patch of them before noticing them! (No worries, these are tough little guys that don't smush easily like some mushrooms.) Under the big old apple tree in the woods, my first morel find!

They look like tiny canteloupe

I would compare the feeling of ecstasy to that at the birth of my children. I ran to the house to a) get a grocery bag for the hundreds we would find (we actually found 47), and b) set “American Idol” to “record” so we could hunt and pick morels without missing who was going to be booted this week. (We picked Pickler, and we were right.)

I will be a bit late getting home this evening, and needless to say, I have asked Don very politely not to go out hunting until I get home. I have a feeling he will scout and maybe mark patches if he finds them. But I KNOW he won’t pick any until I get there.

Hunting and finding are almost as good as eating, and they round out the experience. What a glorious and spontaneous gift from Mother Earth.

We’ll do the eating this evening after the hunt. We did not eat yesterday’s find last night since we'd already eaten supper when we began our hunt, so we know we at least have 47 morels to eat for supper. And maybe nothing else, except a glass of cabernet sauvignon. Priceless.

The largest morel from yesterday was about 2 inches. The smallest less than an inch.

Personal power

If truth, love and power are our essential “soul” nature, power is something I need to learn more about. (I believe they are, and I won’t take space here to argue my case.)

Here’s what I’ve been thinking.

It is a cultural paradox that we live in a country of power (and its negative representation: arrogance), but many of us don’t know how to express power well.

What I DON’T mean by “personal power”:
- ego
- lording it over anyone
- bragging
- wanting my own way all the time
- thinking more highly of myself than I ought
- ambition
- always being a leader

What I DO mean:

- Getting rid of all the crud and clutter, the residue of this world (layers of psychological time, memories that bind, regrets, negative emotions, bad dreams, inadequacies, resentments) so a vast emptiness remains.

- Into this vast emptiness comes God/Source/Creation, whatever you want to call "it."

- When “pure,” it is the most powerful thing imaginable, expressed through you and your idiosyncrasies. Pure means clean. Clean: without the crud, without judgment of right or wrong, without limit.

- When in this state of pure personal power, you: know who you are, don’t feel inadequate even in the midst of others who are “more _______”, have amazing energy you never knew was possible, create a magnetism around you that can be confusing and mysterious to others.

- When in this state, negative emotions do not arise. There is no need for them, because you are in a state of cleanness that is guilt-free. If someone rants at you, their anger passes right through you – whoosh – because there is nothing to stick to. Even if you DID do something to hurt them, you can easily admit it and let it go!

- If you adhere to a particular religious set of beliefs, this does not go against any of them as far as I can tell. If you are an atheist, there are dynamics of human relationship that are real, even if you do not believe God is at the root of it all.

Every day take inventory of feelings, memories, regrets, pains. Let it come up, and look at it, until you understand it. Each one, one at a time, for as long as it takes. Then let it go (in whatever meditative practice that works for you). If you do this at least daily, I guarantee that you will begin to be empty, and this pure personal power will begin to feel like your normal state of being.

It is complete freedom.

May in Paris

A view from the Sacré-Cœur basilica, courtesy Donica Detamore

Oh happiness! I will be in Paris May 13! A week of photographing the city, researching a new hobby business (travel coaching) and exploring. I will be alone, a first for me. As much as I would LOVE to have Don with me (or YOU), I look forward to jump starting this business plan.

I'm the luckiest woman in the world.

Please visit my blog Paris Deconstructed, where there's a new post about Montmartre, a neighborhood where you can eat crepes, get your portrait painted, climb a church tower and watch the sun set over the city in one day.

Maize, blue (make) green

There was a conspiracy yesterday on the campus of Michigan State University. Everywhere I turned I saw maize and blue (colors of a certain Michigan university down the road).

But it's all good. There's still plenty of green to go around.

This is just a nod to the power play I feel in the air today (that has nothing to do with school colors). Power is part of our essential nature. Do I use it? Lose it? Abuse it?

The buds on the beech tree in front of my building

Daffodils

I can't let them pass without chronicling them, and their little friends. These daffodils are on the farm. Those in the photo above were brought from Amsterdam by Donica.

Easter cactus?

I began collecting Christmas cactuses (cacti) last winter. I have a couple of big ones, some little ones, and some very little ones I propogated myself.

I've been studying up to know when to fertilize, and with what fertilizer. This month I'm supposed to start adding fertilizer for leaves, and set them outside in the shade in the summer months. Then in the fall begin applying fertilizer for blossoms at Christmas time.

So, hello! Why are my "Christmas" cacti blooming for Easter?

At first it was disconcerting. Then it began to sink in (aside from the obvious "resurrection" theme).

They are a "bloomin'" example of getting rid of boundaries! Who says Christmas cacti can't bloom any other time of year? Who says WE can't flourish when least expected? In fact, who's to say one person's "life" season isn't another person's "dormant" season? Or vice versa? Christmas is the most depressing time of year for some, made worse by "society's" expectations for joy and mirth.

So why should spring get flowers it doesn't expect? Who knows? Just more questions without answers.

Thank you, dear Cosmos, for this colorful surprise.

I wonder if they'll "rest" at Christmas?

Ok, now that I've had my philosophical rant, any horticulturalists have answers? Rachel?

Visit my new blog: Paris deconstructed

I hope you will visit my new blog: Paris deconstructed. If you love something as much as I love that city, why not create its own blog?

This blog, Synchronizing, will continue. Paris deconstructed may have less frequent posts, perhaps weekly.

See you there!

A poem: The Curl of Satisfaction

The Curl of Satisfaction

The fourth grade girl did not yet know the lesson
of waiting, so she gave her teacher, my husband, the bluebird
house she had built for her own yard
and watched while it remained unpopulated
two seasons.

He nailed his birdhouse gift to a little gray poplar
in our field and we waited another two years.

We studied bluebirds,
knew we’d have to clean out the house
for another family next year, if a family ever came.

Today his arm stops me, pointing to the little poplar
twenty feet away where blue and orange ignite
a branch like a match flame: a male bluebird.

The female darts out of the birdhouse’s black hole
and eyes us from another branch.


The birds hesitate. They scoop to other trees
away from us. They postpone their nesting
until we are well away, until
when?

I’m learning to wait
for the curl of satisfaction that comes
more often than not. I hold
hope like a pilot light

until the time
that is no time, when reasonless beings burn:
Now.


- Ruth M. April 2006

Graffiti

More on Detroit.

Last Saturday we went to the Cass Cafe where we hung out with Lesley. It's a bohemian place with original art for sale on the walls, yummy food with a spicy twist, my first authentic cherry coke with grenadine syrup (I know, I'm a loser never to have had the real thing).

Click on photo to see the RED in the bottom of the glass better.

Lesley told me I needed to visit the bathroom just to see the door latch, which is about ten times bigger than a normal door latch. You can see my 18-inch bag hanging on it, below. Strange proportions and perspective, eh?


This is another view in the women's stall. (I hope I didn't leave anything lewd in the photo, besides the fact of a photo in a bathroom stall itself being a bit lewd.)

This is in the men's stall (thanks, Don). This blows me away! It looks like a painting. Now who do you suppose took the time?

I love graffiti as an art form, in the right place. I'm glad Cass Cafe doesn't remove theirs.

Don't you love the artistic writing you see on trains and on the sides of buildings in certain cities? Not all of it is view-enhancing, obviously. But it's another instance where perspective matters.

Here's a site for trying out your name (or whatever) in a graffiti font.

Here's a great (if annoying at times) site for worldwide graffiti as art.

Detroit houses

Since Lesley began studying at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit, we’ve been learning more about Detroit, exploring neighborhoods, and generally appreciating it as a community more. (She graduates this semester, and today she flies to Milan to represent her school at the Milan Furniture Fair! See my post February 16.)

Saturday we took her to lunch and explored the exhibits at her school, HER exhibits, our last visit before she graduates May 11.

We also explored two historic residential areas. I want to show some of Detroit’s houses. They're not as spectacular as mansions in many places, but I love them. The first, above, is in the Canfield historic district. The other two, including Jack White’s former residence (which one do you think it is? hint: the band White Stripes, everything in the band is black and white, hmm?), are in Indian Village.

Architect Albert Kahn was among the architects of homes in Indian Village. Edsel Ford among the home owners. The wide variety of architectural styles is amazing. Many people bought up these homes in the past few decades for a song since many need refurbishing.

Happy Birthday, Don

I'm so glad you were born.

The "end" of the rainbow

I know very little of the physics of our world, but what I "know" astonishes me. What I saw Friday driving home from work blew me away.

I saw the end of the rainbow! I don’t know how many rainbows I’ve seen in my lifetime, not all that many. Always, the ends of the colorful arc are hidden behind trees, clouds, buildings.

Friday, driving home in a mix of lightening and thunder, rain and hail, there was a rainbow, and sometimes a double rainbow (as you can see in the photo above). And most exciting was that the end of the rainbow was visible, which you can just see if you look closely at the zoom of the same view below, in front of the trees.

I know the prism is a result of the sun shining through the water molecules in the air, a physical law. But that the Creator decided to make it so beautiful, so complete and whole, is a sign that beauty, light and truth are at the center of all things.

The full spectrum of color, the same colors that clairvoyants see in our chakras – our own ever-present rainbow -- the perfect balance and symmetry, this is our fundamental truth! This is who we are, what the world is, why we need to peel away layers to see it as often and as regularly as possible. Our hope, our truth, our beauty, our light.