Purple has been my favorite color as long as I can remember—before I attended Kansas State; even before I attended school in Burlingame, KS, where the colors are purple and white. Family lore has it that even before I was five years old, whenever there was a family dinner at my paternal grandparents’ house, I requested the shiny purple aluminum drinking tumbler over the other colors in the set. 

Imagine my deep and utter disappointment, then, when I recently discovered “my” color is green. At least according to a highly scientific and reputable source: one of those quizzes that popped up on my Facebook timeline because one of my friends took the quiz and shared it. Even my aura is green!

But, my research into those Facebook quizzes to determine who or what I am, or was, or will be, is a subject for a future blog post.

Anyone who visits us this time of year will find a profusion of purple in our yard and garden. We have many varieties and shades of purple flowers as well as purple asparagus and a couple of salad greens that are partially or totally purple. Later in the summer, we will have eggplant.

The earliest purple flowers are usually the little violets that grow throughout the yard. I gather bouquets and display in a miniature vase in my kitchen window sill. Unfortunately, the idea for this blog post didn’t occur to me until the violets were finished blooming so I really had to hunt to find one to photograph.

The next blooms are vining vinca, a ground cover plant, then dame’s rocket, meadow sage and sweet william. Again, I almost missed the blooming season for sweet william. Earlier, our timber was full of it.

No creeping phlox, you ask? How can this be? We’ve never had a good visible, sloping area for these, but now we do. Bill bought some this year and we will add more next year. 

Considered an invasive perennial by some people, our spiderwort bloomed this week. As long as it’s purple, it can invade! Larkspur also spreads readily. Ours has buds, but no blooms yet. This picture is from last year.

Our early bulb flowers with purple blooms are hyacinths, tulips and allium. The purple tulips were history before I got pictures. To me, allium looks like dandelions gone to seed with purple fluff!  

Six years ago when we moved to our current farm, I was sad to leave our gigantic snowball bush (hydrangea family) and a lilac bush that was finally about six feet tall and producing wonderfully fragrant blooms. We have a small lilac bush here, but it struggles and only produced a few blooms this year.

A couple of years ago, a friend who came out to see our iris pointed to a huge bush and asked, “Isn't that wisteria?” The bush itself wasn't wisteria, but there were cascading clumps of lavender/white flowers hanging from vines within the bush. We researched and found out they were, indeed, wisteria. I promptly named an opening in the row of bushes “Wisteria Lane,” after the street on the Sunday night television soap, “Desperate Housewives.” Does this, then, make me a “Desperate Farmwife”? Desperate for more wisteria, yes!

Last weekend, we visited friends in Meriden who host a showing of their extensive iris beds every spring. They also have other perennials. We brought home and Bill planted purple chives and columbine. The chives still have their heads; but Bill clipped off the columbine blooms, hoping the plants would survive the heat last week.

Speaking of iris...

Some of the bluebird houses featured in our spring listings were later condemned by the building inspector due to code violations; a couple were even falling apart! The inspector was not impressed by the use of cute adjectives, “handyman delight,” “rustic” and “shabby chic,” and could not be persuaded to reconsider.

As a result of this ruling, there was a flurry of construction activity in the basement. Result – six new bluebird houses built of all-natural wood siding with weather-proof coating. No, these are not “row” houses.

These immaculate new homes have been mounted on sturdy fence posts and generated immediate interest and swift move-in activity among the bluebird population and one pair of sparrow squatters.

This bluebird found a new home to his liking for his family.

The sparrow squatters staked their claim so fast you’d have thought it was the Cherokee Strip Land Rush. Their decorating scheme can only be described as “eclectic”—grass, twigs or anything else they can haul in. This pair even decorated the ceiling but not the back wall! 

Bill snapped this picture of a bluebird house interior—thoughtfully planned and very cozy. Mama bluebird laid three eggs. But Bill checked the nest prior to taking the picture and, tragically, the eggs were gone, likely victims of a hungry predator.

Once tours at the Wren Designer Showhouse were over, a pair of wrens moved in. Unfortunately, they have encountered difficulty in furnishing their new home. Mama Wren selected a twig that was too long to fit through the doorway and couldn’t figure out how to turn it sideways to get it in.

Bill discovered a pair of mockingbirds set up housekeeping in a small cedar tree. 

Here is their future new family.

Bill checked the nest a day later and, once again, the eggs were gone. The nasty nest raider struck again!

Unfortunately, we have no purple martin move-in activity to report, but are still hopeful.

In the years since that first morel hunt, I’ve evolved from a clueless rookie hunter to a seasoned warrior. The first major change was in clothing. No more timber fashionista in white shorts, stretchy little tee shirt and white dress tennies. Uh-uh! Now I wear my farm jeans which go to the hunt pre-snagged from crawling through barbed wire fences; long-sleeved tee shirt, also pre-snagged, and light-colored so the ticks seeking a tasty meal are easier to find and annihilate; faded denim or chambray shirt if the weather is cool; one of Bill’s old farm caps; and my gum boots—good for keeping my feet dry and relatively clean, as well as being handy for stomping down thorny bush branches instead of picking my way through them.

As I said in “To Die For…Literally,” morels are usually found in heavy timber and along creek and river banks. This is fairly hazardous territory and not for the faint of heart! My war wounds include gashes and scratches inflicted by barbed wire fences and thorns from trees and bushes; and a small knot on my head from walking crouched over with my head down, then raising up and hitting a low-hanging tree branch. Ouch!

Then there are ticks! When we arrive home after a hunt, we strip down and leave the clothes outside until they are laundered. Any crawling or embedded ticks are removed and killed; then it’s time to hit the shower. The next major project is de-ticking Cricket. Even though she wears a flea and tick collar, she still picks up a bunch of the little hitch-hiking blood suckers!

I strapped on my camera so I could share pictures from the hunt this year.

Most of the time, we use the Suzuki mini-truck, aka “Morel-Mobile,” to get to the hunting locations.

“Find ‘em, Girl!” I wish Cricket could point morels like she does pheasant and quail!

Let the hunt begin!

Branches on sticker bushes formed a canopy over a small area where I had to crawl in on hands and knees to harvest half a dozen morels.

Double-bonus!

Omigosh! Quintuple-bonus—this was a first for me!

Cricket poses with our bags. Mine is the one on the left. Bill considerately sent me into an area he thought would produce a mother lode of morels! 

We dumped Bill’s bag into mine and conducted a weigh-in: 5 pounds, 9.7 ounces. Not bad!

Here’s the day’s total haul spread out on a tarp. The three light-colored morels in the upper right corner came out of the ground that day.

One of the best parts of the whole morel mushroom experience is that now I can enjoy eating them without worrying about whether or not I will wake up the next morning!

I've come a long way since my first morel mushroom hunt 30 years ago. Then, I had heard of morels but never seen one, much less eaten any. Now, I’m a seasoned hunter and love them! For a look back at my adventure as a clueless rookie morel hunter, here is a chapter from my book...

Bill introduced me to a highly anticipated rite of spring in the hunter-gatherer world: hunting morel mushrooms. This is truly a back-to-nature experience. Morels are found in heavy timber and along creek and river banks in mid-spring. Moderately wet weather followed by a few days of warm temperatures will coax these little delicacies from the ground.

Hunting them involves trekking through timber; getting tangled up in thorn bushes; risking up close and personal encounters with snakes, venomous or otherwise; wandering into a marshy area you didn’t know was there; and having ticks hitch-hike back to the house on your body while sucking up your blood. Definitely an adventure, but bringing home a plastic bread sack full is worth it! Our favorite springtime meal is fresh pan-fried crappie, home-grown asparagus, and sautéed morel mushrooms.

Early in our relationship, Bill took me morel hunting at his folks’ farm southeast of Topeka. This City Girl showed up in white shorts, a stretchy little tee shirt and a brand new pair of dressy tennis shoes. The timber wildlife would be absolutely dazzled! Due to my inappropriate morel-hunting attire, I didn’t venture into any dense timber; I stayed mostly along the edge of the trees. But I did get my dressy tennies muddy crossing a creek. A misstep off a rock took care of both the newness and the dressiness.

We found a few morels and went back to Bill’s farm. He cooked them for supper, along with fresh crappie and asparagus. While he was cooking, I had a horrifying thought: Didn’t people die from eating poisonous mushrooms gathered out in the timber? My recollection was that some were okay but others were lethal and some people didn’t recognize the difference until it was too late. Bill seemed knowledgeable about what to look for; he had hunted and eaten morels previously. And they smelled so good, sautéing in butter and a few herbs. How could they possibly kill me?

Bill filled the plates and we sat down to eat. I poked at a morel with my fork, then apprehensively stabbed and put it my mouth. Ummmm—to die for…literally? I swallowed, then sampled the crappie and asparagus. More ummmm’s. Soon, my plate was empty and I was still alive—no excruciating stomach cramps and no barfing up my socks. So far, so good!

When I went to bed that night my last thought was, “Will I wake up in the morning?”

I did, and I've been eating morels ever since!