On a soggy Green Mountain morning, I am following a mossy streambank under a mixed canopy of hemlock, ash and birch. My every sense is engaged as I scan the surrounding soil in a search of the peerless porcini. After multiple failed early season attempts, my timing is finally perfect. Kings are back in action, and I let the bloated old ‘flags’ – yellow-pored and squishy stemmed – guide me straight to the prime specimens, mycological royalty camouflaged beneath autumn leaves.

Our family enters the forest to find a reinvigorated mycological landscape. Eight-year-old Eliana is mesmerized by a spiraling flush of dainty waxy caps, while three-year-old Noemi munches on trailside blackberries. Jenna is deep in focus photographing summer novelties like purple coral mushrooms and jelly babies, but I have only one thing on my mind: reaching my favorite local black trumpet spot, among the boulders and beech trees ahead.

Golden chanterelles, classic summer wild mushrooms, have arrived early this year in Vermont. My rational mind tells me to wait until July, but instinct carries me up a rocky streambed toward an old patch. I am greeted by a sleek red fox that makes fleeting eye contact before leaping stealthily out of sight. Soon I arrive at a pair of hemlocks that have produced in past seasons, and the hunt is on.

The weather – day after day of sparkling, blue skies and spring flowers – was undeniably spectacular. For a string of sun-soaked days, each evening found children splashing playfully in the river and brown trout rising explosively to flies. Everywhere I looked I saw people smiling, their relief palpable on the heels of another long and trying winter.