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Nice. We got screwed last year and the year before and probably going to get screwed again this year.

I suppose I should be grateful I wasn’t floated down the river when the giant evil corporation I work for was assimilated by an even gianter and more evil corporation a couple years back.

Getting off the beaten path is usually a good plan, but don’t neglect to look at the edge of the parking lot and along that beaten path on your way out to the honey hole. Many people, in their haste to get away from everyone else, miss the ones that are right under their noses.

My forebears brought Virginia Bluebell bulbs with them when they migrated westward from the east coast in the 1700s. They worked their way across the Blue Ridge into Kentucky and eventually landed here in Misery.

The original homestead cabin here was built on a rocky knob sometime around 1840. For several years my wife and I would go there in the spring and dig Bluebells that we then transplanted at our homestead site. They struggled for the first few years but have been increasing steadily since they got settled.

Finding morels... the best advice I can give is to learn your trees. In my part of the world morels have an affinity for apple, ash, cedar, cottonwood, elm, mulberry, multiflora rose, and sycamore. There may be others but those are the species that I key on when I’m searching.

Then there’s the “I’m a fungus and I do what I want” thing... at my grandparents homestead (built in 1860) I would find morels growing all over the house yard. The trees there were catalpa, hickory, and oak. I suspect the affinity there was for the catalpa, but I can’t be certain. I would occasionally find some in a catalpa grove that my GrandPap and Great Uncle planted for fence posts in the early 1900s so there may be something to the catalpa affinity. I know people that claim to have spots where the predominant species of tree are oaks, but I’ve never been able to put a pattern together on those.

I know a lot of people who have good spots in the hills. Most of my spots are creek and river bottoms, but I do have a couple hill ground spots that are very reliable. I’m getting to the stage of life where it’s a lot easier to get to the patches on flat ground so I find myself checking the hill spots less often each year.

If you’re on fakebook you’ll find numerous morel hunting groups that can be a gold mine of good information if you’re willing to wade through the BS and troll posts, and there’s a lot of it to wade through even on the groups that are well-moderated.

My best spots are all on public land. Conservation areas along the Missouri River, city parks, state parks, national forest land, and wildlife reserves.

It’s been super warm and dry here in the middle of Misery for the past week. Most of the spots here are done if we don’t get some rain real soon now. It’s sprinkling out now with a good chance of heavier rain all day, and again on Thursday so I’m holding out hope that the late season will be a good one.

All this talk about morel mushrooms is making decide to share about a Wild Morel & Leek Jack cheese by Meister that’s just incredible when shredded and melted over steak.

That sounds amazing. I'm gonna have to try it.

I managed to catch a few more last week. Some of these had a bit of frostbite on them but that's no big deal - just snip the bad stuff off and they're good to go. We've eaten most of the freshest ones already. I gave a gallon or so away to a couple of my neighbors who can't get around good enough to find their own. I've got a couple gallons dehydrating to save for later, and the really junky ones I chucked on the ground in my woods to maybe get lucky and start a new patch.

My spots are pretty much finished for the year unless we get some rain real soon now.

I made some more progress on the new hoop house over the weekend. The stringers are all up and the ground has been covered with a nice layer of topsoil. Still need to install the cattle panels, frame the ends, and cover it with greenhouse film. I'm out of time to start tomatoes and peppers from seed so I'll just buy bedding plants this time.

The bundle of Dunstan Chestnut trees that I ordered earlier in the spring arrived on Friday. I was able to get two of them planted yesterday morning. I hope to get the rest of them in by the end of the week.

Why wait for it be empty?

I'd think it would be too early for morels to be popping up there on the tundra. They're just getting going good down here. I checked my creek on Saturday and found two scouts where I always find them. That means it's time for me to leave the early spots alone and start checking the spots where they come later.

Pops came over yesterday morning and ran the post hole digger for me. I don't ask him to any heavy lifting these days but it makes him happy to get out and help how he can, especially if it gives him a chance to use one of the tractors. Once the holes were punched he went to the couch and I got busy. Cleaned out the holes, bedded the posts in ag lime, set the temporary braces, and called it a day. This hoop house is going to be a bit bigger than the old one - 10'x25' with 9' to the peak of roof. I'd like to have it finished by the weekend but I have a feeling that mushroom hunting may slow the progress just a bit.

Last week was mostly cool and breezy here in Central Missouri. We had a couple rounds of showers move through during the week. 1.1" from one and .3" from the other. It's setting up to be a good year for finding morels.

I'm going to stay out of the woods today and try to get something done out in the new garden patch. Maybe set the posts for the new hoop house...

Gorgeous weather over the past week here in Central Missouri. The weekend was busy as most are here.

The grass has been mowed and several more dead trees have been chopped down, cut up into smaller pieces, and shoved off into the sippy hole. This one was a whopper and I'm happy to be rid of it.

Main tasks for this week are to put down on paper how I'm going to lay out the beds in the new garden and to set the posts that will support the new hoop house. I hooked the post hole digger up to Mr. Clarence yesterday but with all of the chainsaw time I decided to give my bones a couple days to recover before I start setting fence posts.

That and it's time to get serious about looking for morels.

That sounds like a lot of work. There's not enough of me to go around so I'm always looking for ways to simplify what I need to do.

I started off 16 years ago with three bulbs of California White from one of the local hippie food stores. They were about half the size of the bulb pictured below. I saved back the best bulbs for planting and now almost every bulb comes out near the size of a baseball.

Garlic is super easy Pete, and it does very well in raised beds.

In our growing area stick cloves in the soil by Thanksgiving, cover with 6” of compost, keep the weeds out, water a bit if the weather is bone dry, harvest when the tops are mostly dried up and starting to fall over - usually around July 4th.

Pull it, braid it, hang it in a well-ventilated place that’s out of the sun to cure.

Spring is beginning to sprung here in Central Missouri. Mostly warm this past week with another inch of rainfall.

After work yesterday I made a quick jaunt into the woods to check for morels. Nothing there yet so I got Nanner out and moved my heap of ready-to-use compost into the new garden patch.

Next step out there is deciding how I want to lay out the planting beds. I’m thinking of putting the hoop house along the east fence with the pole bean/squash arbors along the south fence. Perennial beds in the center then beds for the annuals around that. All while leaving enough space to get in, out, and around with the tractor and without using up all of the good topsoil I’ve stockpiled before the new raised beds (that aren’t built yet) have been filled.

I’ve got the house yard cleaned up and ready for the first mowing of the season. Mrs. Augie will do the honors after we get back from our run to the feed store.

Still have a handful of dead trees that need to come down. Those will be at the top of my to-do list this weekend if the winds are low enough to work on them safely.

I need a nap from just thinking about all that...

You’ve never operated a watercraft.

You’ve formulated a BY GOD fact from viewing one video on the interwebs.

You’re unwilling to consider the possibility that you might not be correct in your assumptions.

And from that I’m deaf, dumb, blind, a fed, and a transvestite. That’s quite a stretch, even for a FReeper.

I said read the thread, not the news article at the top of the thread.

I know better than to declare a BY GOD fact based on one video from a single perspective.

Did you intentionally neglect to answer my query regarding your experience at the helm of any sort of watercraft?

And I’d love to hear the basis of your certainty that the turn into the bridge was deliberate? Were you in the wheelhouse with the harbor pilot?

You can LOL!!! all you want. Doesn't change the fact that your speculative claims are based on pure ignorance.

Go read this thread: the facts are starting to come in.

If it had no steering control, any turns would have been more gradual as dictated by currents.

Have you ever operated a watercraft? I'm gonna guess that you haven't.

Yep, you’d have probably been ok crossing that, but to save ten minutes? I’d have turned around too.

I dumped 1.3” out of the rain gauge this morning. The little rains that we’ve been getting over the past few weeks haven’t done much for the water level in my pond. It had all been soaking in until this one. I haven’t had a measuring stick in the water for quite awhile now but my eyeballs are estimating 4”-5” of rise. Still a ways to go to achieve full pool but I’ll take it.

The past week here in Central Missouri was mostly cool and dry. We're getting some rain and wind this morning. Need the rain, and I won't complain about the wind as long as it doesn't blow too crazy. I've got a couple big dead water oaks that need to be cut down but aren't safe to work on because they each have a big limb broken off that's hung in the canopy. I suppose I should have gotten to them sooner.

I spent a good part of the weekend working on the new garden patch. I cut down three middling sized dead elm trees and two middling-large sized live elms and hauled the scraps off to the sippy hole. Then I cleaned up a big limb that came out of an oak tree in the dry lot and wiped out a section of board fence. Fortunately no posts were broken off. One post was pushed over ~45° but with Nanner's help I was able to straighten it up without much trouble.

While I had the tractor out I cleaned up the other pile of rotten hay and horse poo that was left over from feeding during the winter and added it to the heap in the new garden spot. After all that was done Mrs. Augie and I made a lap around the fence lines with the limb loppers and a bottle of Tordon RTU. I lost count of how many multiflora rose and bush honeysuckle we cut and treated. We quit when the Tordon ran out. There's not much point to cutting them if they can't be treated while the cut is fresh. It's a nasty job but it has to be done every few years to keep the fence lines clear of the cursed things.

We also made the decision to repair the perimeter fence around the sunflower field and turn that back into pasture. Those fences have been neglected for quite awhile so that's going to be a bit of a job. Those old fencerows are so overgrown it would be extremely difficult to pull new wire so I'll patch where I can and use cattle panels where I have to. I don't want the horses in my bait pond so I'll have to build a couple hundred feet of new fence and hang another gate for pond access.

Oh, the joys of a homeowner...

Doh! Use M&Ms instead. They melt in your mouth but not in your hand.

Many years ago a buddy of mine was what could only be considered as a slumlord. He owned several dozen shacks that he rented out to Section 8 types.

His solution to tenant removal was very clever. He kept the water service in his name rather than having the renter pay the utility deposit and monthly charges. When a tenant went 45 days delinquent the water was shut off.

He said the longest it ever took for the deadbeats to either get current on rent or leave was ten days. Things tend to get stinky when the toilets won’t flush.