Wheezing uncontrollably in the pollen-laden air, I make a sunset run to the nearest nettle patch at the city’s edge. I park my car on the side of the dusty dirt road and enter the woods beneath cottonwood and box elder. I walk past sprawling patches of denuded ostrich ferns, crudely cut stumps deprived of the chance to unfurl. Located just beyond the urban fray, this patch of ferns falls victim to the tragedy of the commons each spring as commercial foragers make their rounds and leave no fiddlehead behind.

As I walked the woods today with family and friends, spring was everywhere. Northern Vermont’s soils, frozen five feet deep in March, are bursting with new growth. Thousands of trout lilies poked out of the saturated soil. Trilliums, already bearing white buds, brushed up against blue cohosh and tangy wood sorrel.

We always enjoy receiving notes from blog readers, workshop participants and fellow mushroom enthusiasts. When local Vermont photographer Monica Donovan contacted us earlier this year asking if she could accompany us on a foray for a personal wildcrafting photography project, we gladly welcomed her along.

A perfect storm is brewing, foragers. Rain has fallen down upon our parched soils, and a slow moving cold front will push into the region Friday night. This means additional showers, just as daytime highs drop from the 80’s to the lower 60’s.  This means morels.

Morels are on the move, and ramp season is ramping up! The foraging season is upon us, and the landscape is bursting with new life. Even up here in northern Vermont, the snowpack is receding as spring ephemerals delight in the sunlight piercing through the leafless canopy.