As we venture deeper into springtime, perhaps some of you are venturing into the woods in pursuit of the morel mushroom. Some people think just finding them is hard part when knowing what to do when you find them could be even more important. There’s all kinds of mixed information on the internet, but here are some tips I think you’ll find remarkably useful.

1. When you go looking for morels it’s important to like you’re doing something else. You see, morels can hear your thoughts, and in addition to ears they also have legs. If they can hear you coming for them they’ll always take off running.

2. Along those same lines let’s say you do stumble on a solo morel. Since one is not enough it’s good form to keep up the ruse. May be say, “Oh… hello.” but keep on your way as if you’re just passing through to retrieve a sock you lent to your friend over yonder. The morels will overtime become less afraid of you and think you’re just a lone-sock-retrieving traveler.

3. Let’s say you see two morels. Well you can’t take just one or the other will take off and alert the others. If you took both you’d better hope no one see you leave with the whole lot! Best thing to do here is to strike up a conversation about the weather, morels love talking about the weather, then carry on.

4. Maybe as you carry along you wander into a whole group of morels. This is a morel meeting where they talk about all sorts of things important to morels, like that person whose been clumsily bumping around in their forest. It’s important to be courteous and wait until the meeting is done, and when everyone begins to leave you can invite a few over to dinner with you. They’re usually glad to because as we all know meeting are long and boring and they’ll be happy for some fun.

5. Much of finding morels can feel hit or miss at times but I’ve found that building a good, strong friendship makes them eager to find you every spring and catch up on the past year.

6. The best place to start in making a lasting friendship is to treat them and their community with respect and not as a “product” or “ingredient” or “social media status elevator”, but as their own unique living thing. For instance a good tip is to not call them weird science names within earshot. That’s like calling you a homo sapien. Barf! If you can’t think of anything, saying “Hello friend, who do you do?” is a fine start.