What Bill Betts and LaReta Johnson Saw Morel Hunting!

Bill tried to put these pictures on the blog. He had trouble and inserted a link this morning. I am going to try to show the road, the flowers, the wildlife, (not the snake) , the participants, and the morels. Genny Steiner. Here Goes! The following is by Bill, as he wrote about he and LaReta's journey in search of Morels.

Morel HuntIf one were to drive all the way from Boise with the excitement of the Great Morel Hunt coursing through one's veins, one probably would find the the scene picture above somewhat of a downer. Reta and I are watching this situation closely hoping to prevent this from happening to our dear club members from the Big City.

More road damage.

Another picture of the raging Mann Creek. The late snow falls this spring have swollen Mann Creek and filled the reservoir. The water is spilling over the glory hole and there are some who live along Mann Creek who are reportedly more than a little tight jawed over the situation. We saw a half dozen places where the creek has jumped its banks and covered the road causing damage to the road, but not making it impassable--at least as far as we drove. There might be more significant damage farther up the creek. I will check with the USFS Weiser District Office as to the availability of the road on the 16th of May. Mushroom hunting should be good if we can get to those burn areas, but this has been a most unusual spring.

The following is a clutch of turkey eggs. I found them under a tree strewn about a bit. Maybe puffballs, already? No. Very cold turkey eggs. I don't know what happened to the hen, but turkey season has been opened for 13 days, so some unethical hunter may have shot her. These eggs were found on Keithly Creek and we did see three turkeys on Mann Creek.

Morel hunting was not producing and, as you might know, when with Reta one stops often to take pictures of wild flowers. So we did. Good stop. Oh, yeah, this fortunate decision led to finding some morels. The only ones all day long.

The following picture was suppose to show the snowflakes, but alas, the snow came down hard at the most inconvenient times. This was not an inconvenient time. Some of the time we were bathed in sunshine, and sometimes we were just bathed. What a day.

Wouldn't you know it--these mouthwatering oysters were on a tree on the other side of Mann Creek and Mann Creek was inviting only fools to cross this day. Good thing Reta was along to keep me from trying to cross that raging torrent. Telephoto lens brought the oysters into the picture.

Ah Hah. Finally, the prize. Reta and I only found five morels and they were all in the same place on a road bank under a little duff under a bush. So, the day was not much of a success, but we did get to see lots of things, experienced four snow/hail storms and have a snake slither right over Reta's foot. And she saw it. Pretty exciting. I will let her tell the story. She can really get into that story, big time. I don't blame her. Oh, yes, and to set the record straight any accounts circulating about Reta having to change any of her garments after her snake encounter are, I can assure you, greatly exaggerated.

Attempted Post by PapaCoyote at 7:14 PM