A Chief's Wife's Heart's 'aFire: Relax; It's Just A LITTLE...??...Case of 'Roomisagloomis'.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Relax; It's Just A LITTLE...??...Case of 'Roomisagloomis'.

A case of "Roomisagloomis" is what The Professor on "Gilligan's Island" diagnosed Maryann as having in a dream sequence of an episode. He explained that 'agloomis' meant 'mush', and 'roomis' was a prefix meaning 'room'. Upon this diagnosis, Maryann puts together the two words and concludes that she is dying from eating poisonous mushrooms. Our worries of the day DO tend to come out in our nightly dreams, & quite often are just as hilarious as I always found Gilligan & his fellow castaways to be. And my own are of counting the mushrooms I find. :D

Nearing the end of an Indiana April, you can often find folks who seem to be "wandering" along the country roads- usually head down, carrying a long walking stick, and perhaps a grocery-store-type oranges/potatoes bag. These are known as "Shroomers" as they are out on the hunt for mushrooms. And they don't tend to travel in groups, but rather walk alone or with just one other person. A Shroomer is usually very secretive about his find as to WHERE they find those tasty -and always HOPEFULLY MEGA-HUGE "morel" or "sponge" mushrooms. This kind of mushroom is found in the spring conditions of warm air and moist ground that has some kind of decay in the soil that includes Elm trees. Nearly every Shroomer has their own way of finding, harvesting, preparing, and even sharing or not sharing them. I prefer to share them as I believe GOD intended. And The LORD is always GOOD at growing those delicious delicacies! They are twice as good if served with a batch of fish (Blue Gill or 'Sunfish') caught in Indiana waters, such as our own private lake here. While the 2013 Season was a very plentiful one, I had my doubts about 2014 due to the harsh and way-too-long winter we had. If anything, I figured it would be an abundant season because of all the heavy snow made for very wet ground. But then, it became too dry a little too soon. By the first of May, I had yet to find the Black morels that usually appear first. After finally seeing them in their usual spot, and finding 8 of them in pretty good sizes, I thought I was spot-on with my "ShroomCast" of 2014...until that next week when very sunny, very hot weather came and I returned home each day: empty-handed. One night, the tones went off for a house fire in the middle of the wee hours of morning, and my ChiefHubby was out all night for it. During the overhaul (sadly a total loss for the family but they did have insurance), some of the other FFs were saying they were coming up empty-handed also. One said he found some, but it was a really rough hunt and they were proving difficult to find this year. But just as I was thinking it was going to be a lost year, the "Indiana Monsoons" came. And man, did it RAIN. And rain, and rain, and RAaaaaaaIN !! And going out into that rain- coughing, sneezing, & grumbling to boot- I stumbled upon THE HUGEST patch of my entire lifetime of mushroom hunting!!! I was so excited I could hardly breathe!! And I think I might have given the ChiefHubby a massive coronary with the texts & photos I was sending to him at work. :D A total count that came to 175 Yellows, with only one that was less than 3 inches. And all were found in ONE patch of about 15 sq ft !!! It took me over an hour to pick them all, and having my Dad, a neighbor who recently had a bad accident, and one daughter's family who loves them - all of these who can't or didn't get the chance to go out there themselves, I happily got to share 50 of them before spending 3 hours one evening getting the rest of them prepped for the freezer. My way of freezer prep is to cut very bottoms off, then after a two-day saltwater soak... slice lengthwise, re-rinse, then egg dip and dredge in flour, salt, &pepper, and lay flat on foil-lined baking sheets for freezing at least 24 hrs, and finally; count out 24 halves into each gallon-sized freezer bags.

Just this very evening I type this, we returned home from the first camping trip of the year with all our 'Church-Buds' (who are more 'family' to us than 'friend') where we cooked up 105 halves on Sunday night. We always head home for church in the very early morning on Sundays, then have the 'bestest' meal for that evening as sometimes we invite others to come back to the campground with us- if it's closeby anyway. Then we gather around for a huge sing-a-long. It really attracts alot of listeners and we tend to get a little crazy at the end. I did my famous rendition of "Dances With Wolves" and also the "CastAway" fire dances.....just for examples of what "a little crazy" means. ;) I remember the first camping trip of 2013, the shrooms were still being found in abundance- by both myself and my ChiefHubby- on just about every hike we took. But seeing that our camping area we chose for that trip actually is not too far from here and it's pretty much the same terrain as this area. Now THAT was a very good year for them. But this camping trip was a couple of counties away from ours and while I did search on several hikes, I came up empty. It looked too dry where we were- even though most of that was all underwater just a few short weeks ago. (The dam was built to help control flooding on the Wabash/Eel Rivers in that county, while supplying electricity to a good number of residents in several counties.) So Morels continue to be "the BIG One that got away" even if it never was there in the first place. But more than likely; it was right there under all those dead leaves....laughing at you while you missed it completely. That's ok. There's always NEXT YEAR! :D

In all; 2014 Shroom Season was a great success here. And here's some photos to prove it. Pls

forgive any ' blurrys' since they were taken in the sheer euphoria of THE FIND. ;) See how many YOU can spot!

Above Left: Saltwater bagging whole morels keeps them fresh for giving out so others can fix them to their liking. Above Right: Total constructive chaos reigns while putting up shrooms for freezer keeping. I still had one bag left from last year that we didn't eat. Took that one to camp with us, and still have three bags left for this summer's cookouts with the kids.

We just got setup before I shot this. The ChiefHubby is busy setting up his: radio, pager, 2way radio, phone charge, and LORD knows what else the man carries everywhere with him. I seem to be the only one these days who can take off with just a bag of phone (only because HE makes me carry one), buds, water, camera...and my DOG.

If you're wondering how large this fry pan is....take a look at the upper-rt-inset photo. And the Chief got TWO of these one year for Christmas from our boys. He not only cooks the Ironmen's Breakfasts (they are on break till Fall 2014) but he loves cooking breakfast during camping, especially. I just end up 'helping out' by cleaning up. :)

My little girl- one of 'em anyway. The kitty doesn't like going anywhere. AT. ALL. Aside from our own FurryKids: Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Hunni Pi, and golden striped Tiger kitty BudderCup, I'm also the proud Grandma of three GrandFurries: a 2yo pup (Belgian Mix??) named Moose; a 5yo Rat Terrier named Baxter, and Moose's 'brother' a green striped Tiger kitty named Shax. Our older FFCaptSon named his kitty from a video game...some prince of demons named Shax. Wow. I'm so proud. My poor wittle Shaxim-Waxims kitty !!! Him knows him's Meemaw doesn't think him's a baaaad kitty! ;)