There can be no greater miracle for a morel mushroom hunter to receive than to step outside one miraculous spring day and discover fresh morels growing out of the cracks in one’s own concrete steps. It happened one April morning in 2011 to Hank and Carolyn Schafermeyer of Water Valley, Illinois. Three fresh Yellow Morels appeared one day, literally on their doorstep.

Of course they had no intention of picking these miracle morels. Picked morels are actually not all that rare, miraculously speaking. But voluntary morels growing unexpectedly right on one’s doorstep happens but once in almost nobody’s lifetime. The Schafermeyers knew this event was something special. And so they just watched the gift mushrooms grow, right there on their front steps.

Days passed.

Then a week, and then it was nearly two weeks that had passed since the morels first

appeared when Hank decided they were

now officially too old to eat. Storms and

direct sun on the concrete had taken

their debilitating toll. There had been a

careless bump of a foot once, Hank

acknowledged, and maybe twice.

In the end, nobody would eat at these

morels. Certainly not Hank and Carolyn.

The Schafermeyers love everything in

nature. And they’re absolutely

not opposed to hunting for wild food.

But they don’t eat morels.

Picking morels or any wild mushroom

isn’t for everybody. Even people who

enjoy nature.

Still, even people who don’t eat these sacred delicacies should realize it’s really something worth appreciating when morel mushrooms are growing right on one’s own doorstep.

Chapter 3

A Family Tests Their Morels