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   My wife and I both enjoy hunting and eating morel mushrooms. With residual drought conditions left over from last year, the morel season got off to a slow start. After finally receiving some rain, we jumped in the Ranger and decided to try to find some of the delicious delicacies. A couple of our old reliable spots in the south timber and the north pasture had none. We decided to try someplace we had never checked before. We headed across the dam, through the woods, and across the first of twin sluices. This is about as far as a person can get from civilization on our farm. It was here, the Ranger, that had been running smoothly, decided to quit dead in its tracks. We thought it may have overheated do to driving to slowly while hunting mushrooms as we drove along. We walked about checking for morels in the nearby timber while giving it a chance to cool down. Being cool did not change the Ranger’s attitude. It was just dead. When it comes to repairing engines, my mechanical ability is limited to tapping on assorted parts and calling the machine bad names. Neither of these changed our situation.

   Being the chivalrous person I am, I volunteered to walk back to the house and get another vehicle to pick up my wife. She could wander around looking for mushrooms and try to start the Ranger while I was walking over hill and dale.

   I do not mind walking if there is a good reason, such as hunting. To walk just for the purpose of getting someplace is just annoying. I got to the top of the first big hill when I realized I had not done any significant amount of walking since last deer season. My legs were burning, and I needed a break. It suddenly dawned on me, I had a cell phone in my pocket and could call for help. I generally think of myself as a problem solver and above average in intelligence. I have no idea why it took this long to come up with a solution to our dilemma. It took Damon much less time to show up and rescue us than it would have taken me to walk out and drive back to pick up my wife. We decided to end our adventure for the day and resume our mushroom search after another rain.

   Friday and Saturday it did finally rain. It came down for hours, pretty much wiping out the moisture deficit we had accrued over the past year. With rubber boots, we started the search again. My wife found a few in the south timber and we both found a few in the north pasture. We were driving toward the next spot we were going to search when my wife suddenly yelled, “Stop!” I was not sure what the emergency was until I looked out her side of the vehicle and saw the mushrooms. Great big, yellow, wonderful morels, standing around just waiting for someone to come by and pick them. In just a few minutes, we made up for all the futile searches we had made before. After that haul, our further hunting was somewhat half-hearted. We found enough to meet our needs and have some to share with others.

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