This Year's Haul of Morel Mushrooms so Far

I've had so much to write about lately and so many pictures to show to my followers but I've been having technical difficulties uploading pictures with both bSteem and using Steemit on my phone's Chrome browser and that's why I haven't posted anything in a while. Today, I'm at the library using my laptop.
Anyways, back to the subject at hand. Three days ago (May 14, 2018), I went to my secret morel spot not really expecting to find anything but I wanted to go out and look just to say that I tried. Even though it is pretty late (due to the weird late cold weather we had this winter) I still managed to find some. Last year, I found about 13 between April 28 and May 3 (you can check out pictures of the much bigger mushrooms I found here in this post: https://steemit.com/mushrooms/@proto26/how-to-find-and-possibly-make-money-off-morel-mushrooms

I think my jaw literally dropped when I saw my first morel this year.

As soon as I spotted it, my eyes dropped to the ground as I walked over to it slowly, making sure I didn't miss or step on any on the way. Last year this spot was covered with morels but I didn't see any this year. Then I saw this one:

I started to lose hope and honestly wanted to go home with just these two but I kept looking in the vicinity (where last year there were none that I noticed).

Here's one that I snapped a picture of after cutting. I cut them at ground level with a pocket knife rather than pulling them so as to not disturb the mycelium that lives underground.
Spotting morels can be difficult since sometimes their yellow or grey color blends in with the earthy colors of the leaf litter surrounding them. Sometimes, however, you can spot some bright gold in the distance.

How many do you see in the picture below?

Sometimes they like to hide and you can only spot them after initially passing them up and then looking back from a different angle or backtracking.

I started to find so many that I did not feel like photographing every single one, but I did show you most of them. I found about 8. My finds were somewhat smaller than last year's but I could not afford to leave them to come back later; some were already housing bugs like wood lice and one even had a group of ants living in the hollow center. These are delicacies for the wildlife as well.
I took my precious mushrooms to my friend's house because he has a food dehydrator. I couldn't do it myself because we turned the heat off in my household and that's how I dehydrated them last time: laying them on a plate in front of the vent. Actually, my method worked better than the dehydrator but that's probably because we had set it to minimum heat. I froze the ones that looked like they wouldn't keep. I want to make a casting of my favorite one but I don't know how to do so without destroying the mushroom. They only way I can think of is putting it in a cup and filling the cup with plaster. What's left of the mushroom is destroyed when the molten metal is poured into the mould, but if it works I'm left with a metal morel! Maybe I will sacrifice it...

Bonus
I think you will enjoy some of the other things I saw while mushroom hunting. Here they are:

Not a morel, but seeing other mushrooms is a good sign because that means the environment is ideal for fungi. This is my favorite stage in the development of the fruiting body, before the cap opens up to release its spores. I think they look most beautiful in this stage. The next picture is of the same species further along in development.

This next specimen grows on dead and dying wood (saprotrophic). It is Polyporus squamosus.

These are edible when young and tender, however most people don't consider them good eating. They smell like cucumber and watermelon rinds. Here's what an immature specimen looks like (found on my tree in my backyard). It grows back every year so our maple tree's days are probably numbered.

I also found this minuscule mushroom growing on a thin fallen branch.

Here's a wild strawberry plant, due for some strawberries in few weeks.
And right next to me while I was on the ground harvesting a morel with this garter snake! It wasn't even that afraid of me.

That's all I have to report for now. I hope you enjoyed the pictures of the rare morel. Check out the link I provided in the beginning for more information on the morel mushroom and tips on how to find them.
Thanks for reading!