Not chanterelles

I have no sooner put the dogs out after my siesta than I call them back inside. Thunder rumbles in the west as the winds swirl through the treetops. The dogs hate thunder. In a valley such as ours that is perhaps a half-mile from ridge to ridge, it is often a guessing game to determine the direction and size of an incoming storm. It lurks behind the opposing ridge before springing a surprise. Sound as often as sight is our guide to the weather.

After a couple of weeks of rain and hot humid afternoons, excellent conditions for mushrooms and ideal for chanterelles, I head sans dogs into the backwoods, walking stick, wicker basket, and a lit cigar the tools of my trade. The less I need for an activity, the more satisfaction I derive from the effort and result. Hunting mushrooms is as simple as gathering wild blackberries: first you find ‘em and then you pick ‘em.

By the time I cross the triangle field and move into the woods, the skies have turned an ominous charcoal to the north, west, and south. Thunder rolls from one end of the sky to the other, and images of battling giants are not hard to conjure. The winds pause briefly as I cross the now-dry wet-weather creek and climb a slight rise. Just thirty feet into the forest, the area already looks as if a blanket has been tossed over the treetops. Detail on the darkened ground is tricky to make out, yet in front of me, glowing like gold, impossible to miss, is a scattering of the cup-shaped mushrooms I have come to find, chanterelles.

I walk and smoke my cigar, stooping and gathering from time to time, one here, five over there. The winds pick up, the thunder becomes a constant backdrop, and a nearby lightning strike causes me to jerk and crouch instinctively. I don’t want to exit the safety of the woods and risk walking across the pasture back to the house, so I continue adding to my plunder. This foraging adventure is proving to be epic.

Coming across a fallen oak, I seat myself upon it and perch for a few minutes … until a fawn nestled ten feet away rises from a long rest to stretch and starts with fright at the sight of me. It had better develop much keener hearing, I think, if it wants to survive hunting season in a year or two. The fawn bounds away into the shadows of the forest. The storm has really intensified, and a branch from time to time is wrenched from its parent tree and crashes to the floor.

I find yet another batch of chanterelles, my wicker basket close to full. This flush runs twenty feet up a ravine into the embracing roots of an old red oak. The last mushroom I pick is plucked next to a box turtle, who gives me a baleful glare for taking his dinner. The rain is falling, but little reaches the ground under the dense canopy where I sit on another fallen tree while finishing my cigar.

Back at the woods’ edge I wait another twenty minutes for the storm to pass, then, walking at almost a jog, I head toward the house, still feeling more than a little exposed. Cindy has afternoon coffee ready, and I put down my full basket—a little over two pounds of chanterelles—grab my cup, and join her on the porch.

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Reading this week: I’ve polished off a couple of novels by Robert Fabbri on the emperor Vespasian. As a companion to those two I read the chapter on Vespasian in Suetonius: Lives of the 12 Caesars. And I’m just about finished with the biblio-memoir, Books (L. McMurtry). Any of these come with my stamp of approval, for what that is worth. All the usual trigger warnings apply for the sensitive (Even, surprisingly, with McMurtry).

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UPDATE: My book, Kayaking with Lambs, will be available October 1.