Wandering through chaga country with five-month old Eliana in the snuggly, we came across a group of older women hunting. But it was not mushrooms they were after – they were searching for a member of their hiking party. They said she was the oldest in their group, a very slow hiker, sporting a backpack covered in Green Mountain Club patches. ”She’s been all over the world,” her friends told us, “and she always carries plenty of warm clothes.”

Every October as the wild mushroom season nears its inevitable end, a feeling of desperation sets in as I scramble to get out and collect the last of the harvest. My approach to foraging, usually patient and calculated, becomes decidedly more frantic as I find myself sprinting from oak to oak, fueled by visions of a well-stocked larder. As I check each and every oak for a roosting hen, I envision Thanksgiving turkey stuffed with maitake and lion’s mane – the grandeur of the harvest illuminating the darkest days.

With crispy autumn leaves underfoot and newly naked branches overhead, we took the little one to climb her first mountain. Winter is the longest season in Vermont, a sprawling and frigid affair, and autumn the most ephemeral. But when the leaves are peaking, and the harvest heavy, we are overwhelmed by abundance and undaunted by the coming cold.

I’m eating black raspberries for breakfast, watching them turn from ruby red to a luscious purple as they ripen under the summer sun. Nothing summons memories of summers past like the blackcap – my favorite bramble. My tongue tingles as their zingy burst of flavor finishes with dark, mysterious cloves.

This proud forager has a confession to make – the closest I’ve come to a morel this spring was inadvertently stepping on a lone Gyromitra esculenta. It was a gruesome site, too – the convoluted, wrinkly flesh squished like a false morel pancake on the ground.

The Vermont landscape is raw and rugged, the backcountry blanketed in deep, wet snow and the city streets sullied by slush. Though my calendar tells me today is the first day of spring, outside it is undeniably winter. Yet life is springing from within, kicking and twirling with the lengthening days. She is the first sign of spring, and the sweetest. When the morels begin to fruit, I’ll know our baby girl will be here soon.