Morels

Right now is Morel season. It's a big thing where we live.

Many people travel miles and miles from Madison to find them in natural areas, but Joe and I are lucky enough to have them in our own backyard.














The best part is laying under trees to pick them. The worst part is realizing that your husband probably has grass stains in the elbows of his work shirt while you are looking at the photo you just uploaded. But if that's really the worst thing, it must be a pretty fun adventure.

These are the ones that we found yesterday.














Had I realized that this stump was in the shape of a heart before I took the photos, I would have gotten a little more creative with the styling.
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Before mushroom hunting was fire pit building. Oy, this thing is going to be the end of me. So many hours, so little progress. It's very slow moving. Not only do the rocks have to fit nicely side by side, but they also have to level out as they near the top. Right now I'm at the "nearing the top" stage.












I thought that I only had about 20 hours to go as of yesterday morning. Then I worked on it for 6 hours and realized that I probably have more like 25 hours to go (after those 6 hours...). It's a love-hate thing. I love it because it's like gardening- quiet and calming, and it's outdoors. But I hate it because the stones are heavy and my back is asking me to stop. It's a lot of moving rocks around and bending at a funny stance. There is more trial and error with this project than anything. When I finally do get it right, I move onto the next stone, and then to the next...and then I finally decide that it's time to mortar them down.

Overall, I do like doing it. But the fact that I've spent 3 entire days off doing this only means that our yard is lacking in all other areas.

After I did this fire pit thing all day, I decided that I had to get something else done too. So I did the dishes that have been neglected for a couple of days. Or at least I tried to do them. That's when I cut my hand on a broken glass, realized I should go to Urgent Care for stitches, waited for Joe to get home from work (he was already on his way) and then finally headed out the door. It was determined that yes, it may be that I need 1 or 2 stitches, but that it's in a really bad spot for stitching so we're giving it 3 days to see if it will heal itself. The doctor said it would as long as I didn't bend/use that finger too much. Whew! The good thing was that I didn't have to clean it out since it happened in newly filled dish water. That's probably why it didn't hurt much. But it looks pretty nasty. Across the knuckle where my pointer finger begins on my right hand. The cool part is that I was told that I can't do the dishes for about 6 or 7 days. :)