Today’s walk took me by
a tree that I have passed hundreds of times before. It is a large tree whose center is hollow resulting
from years and years of decay. The onset
of such decay was probably, due in part, to a lightning strike.
Every time I pass,
the dogs always take the extra few steps detour to look into the deep cavity. I have no idea why. I do not bother. The last time I looked into a hollow tree, several
years ago, I was greeted with the steely stare from a coiled snake. Hollowed-out trees rarely pique my interest.
On my return, I
decided, this time, to take a careful peek.
The inside of this huge tree was well rotted for feet both up and down
from my eye level. I had to lean my head
inside to gaze at the bottom of this expansive recess. Thankfully, there was no
snake. As I made my turn to get back on
my well-worn trail, I saw a lovely, solitary morel growing at my feet. What an unexpected pleasure! I quickly phoned my daughter. Becky is the morel hunter and morel eater in
our family. To my surprise, she answered
my call. I asked if she wanted me to
pick the morel for her. Since it was the
only one, she told me just to let it grow.
I took two short
steps before I thought I would get a photo of that morel. It looked so earthy and pristine growing in
the leaf mold under the massive, decaying oak.
In the few short
seconds it took me to turn back, Buddy had nipped the top of the morel from its
base. The freshly-severed honeycomb-like
top lay on the ground next to the still erect smooth white pedestal.
I did not actually
see Buddy bite the morel, but he was the only other warm body, besides me, at
the scene and I know that I did not touch that mushroom. Buddy would not
confess.
Well…so much for ‘letting
it grow’.
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