Morel mushrooms are Ripe in the Land of the Sleeping Bear

By Jane Greiner
Sun contributor
Every year I love to watch for the signs of spring: a robin on the ground; a crocus pushing up; the return of the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks; the first Ruby-throated Hummingbird; the first balmy breeze’ the evenings getting longer.
Like everyone else, I also eagerly await the Trillium. This year it seems we had a bumper crop, with some of the biggest Trilliums I have ever seen. “Trillium Gigantus,” I laughingly call them. Some look literally a foot tall with flowers as big as your fist. Not only that, but in some areas they seem to blanket the ground.

And then there are the mushrooms. Once the trilliums are out and we’ve had a few warm days, everyone starts talking about mushrooms.
I heard on the news weeks ago that people were finding mushrooms in Mesick. I know Mesick is the morel capital of Michigan, but those people down there must have secret spots where they know they can find the earliest mushrooms. Up here it seems like ours always lag behind.
As I waited impatiently in early May for some warm weather, I asked around to hear if mushrooms had been discovered here yet. It turned out that everyone has a mushroom story or a mushroom theory.
A lady at the Glen Arbor Athletic Club told me there are always some in the corner of her yard. But the neighbors know she doesn’t really like mushrooms, so they come and get them.
A couple other people I talked to mentioned morels growing in their yards. These stories of yard morels made me wonder if they grow among regular lawn grass or if these yards are more like my own “yard”, which simply means an opening in the woods where my house stands.
Even the cable TV guy talks mushrooms. He said he thought they would be out by the weekend, “if we can just get some rain.”
Some people think they come out after the warm weather starts, but only if there has been enough rain.
A friend said I should look near beach trees. Another friend says under big pine trees. The Mesick website suggested looking for poplar and ash trees with good spring sun.
My personal theory is that they are best found around plenty of blooming Trilliums and other wildflowers.
Once the Trillium arrived, I started checking a certain spot in my yard among the trees where I found mushrooms two previous years. I also went out for a serious search in the woods off County Road 677, south of the Glen Lakes. But I had no luck, and it felt too cold and dry for mushrooms anyway.
May 17
Yeah! I found my first mushrooms! We walked Alligator Hill on a cool day with a little sun. At the very top, near the lookout over Big Glen Lake, I spotted a large, black morel, practically on the trail. We had walked right past it coming in but somehow I saw it as we started back.
I pointed my walking stick in wonder: I was speechless. “What’s wrong?” asked my friend, as I stood there with my mouth hanging open. Finally I spoke. “Look, a mushroom!” I said. I reached down and picked up the morel, probably the biggest I had ever found. “Here, feel how cool and heavy it is,” I told her. My friend looked around as she touched the mushroom and said, “There’s another one, and look, I almost stepped on this one!”
Those three were all we found and all I have to show for this year. But we took them home and fried them up in butter and, suddenly, spring was off to a great start. After all, it wouldn’t seem like a northern Michigan spring without mushrooms.
Each day now as I pass the cars parked along 677, I silently cheer the avid mushroomers who scavenge the forest hunting morels, and I long to be with them. It’s a warm, sunny Saturday, promising to reach the 70’s as I write this. As soon as I finish, I’ll get my mushroom stick and go out there and join them in this northern Michigan rite of springtime.