Backyard morels, 2009

I really should be making this public knowledge, but we've got morels in the backyard.

I didn't know it when we bought this lot, but had I seen them I would have paid them on the spot in cash for the land.

In the past, I have frozen the morels I didn't eat, but this year I was going to dry them and present them to my dad as a late birthday gift. I get my love of fungus from him. So every day I have been walking the one acre property in search of the little golden goodies, cup in one hand, baby in the other, hoping to strike the mother lode.

But day after day, I'm striking out, instead.

I don't know if this year isn't great for our morel crop, or if there is some other reason why our yield is so low, but I'm pretty bummed.

But behind every low yeild mushroom crop is a silver lining, right? While out looking for these little guys, my little kids have become quite fond of tracking the growth of the spring wildflowers in the woods. They're all about jack in the pulpits.

More on that later.

Spring beauties and dead deer

The darn first entry of every blog. It's almost as bad as the first page of any book.

We took a long hike (despite the photo of the 4-wheeler!) this weekend at Getaway Acres and were super happy to find the first wildflowers popping up. I'm sure they've been popping up for awhile now, but in our little world that's bombarded by school and diapers, finding the first wildflowers of the year are a sign of spring.

Spring Beauties are all over the hills of eastern Ohio. The ODNR has a great site with Ohio wildflowers here. The Spring Beauty is fairly easy to ID. I remember it as having 5 leaves and little whiteish stripes. Small and dainty, like the first wildflowers of the spring should be.

Those little flowers were the best thing we saw on our hike.

The worst? What was left of a dead fawn floating in the lake. Gu-row-sss. But all part of the world we live in. Flower Girl held her nose and ran away. She doesn't do well with death. Boy Boy, who is 150% testosterone as you'll learn, was screaming with excitement as we pulled it out of the lake. He then proceeded to poke it with a stick, learning that the fish hadn't really eaten it.

And The Babe, who has yet to earn an official nickname, took a nap in the backpack.