Too much of a good thing

By Cynthia Hoeh Stancioff Guest Columnist

As the brief, dreary, gray winter days begin to lengthen and yield to spring’s brightening, we frost-weary Mainers rejoice at the first promises of warmth and sun. This change and the preceding darkness are part of the thrill of living in the north. We experience, and pride ourselves in surviving through, all the seasons. I actually enjoyed winter and skiing, but that’s a fast-fading memory now, easily pushed aside as daffodils unfold out of deep green foliage, lawns turn green overnight, and tiny leaves create a pastel haze on the reawakening trees. I start thinking about morel mushrooms, and whether I should once more make a concerted effort to find them here in Maine, or should I again do something even sillier like drive to Ohio (where they are far more numerous)?

But thinking of mushrooms gets me onto the worrisome subject of weather patterns that most people, most of the time, are blissfully receptive to: namely, sunny, warm, non-rainy stretches of any length — the

Earth Notes

“Earth Notes” is an outgrowth of a deep ecology discussion group. Writers reflect a delight in, and concern for, the earth and are individually responsible for opinions and information. Community members are invited to submit articles.

longer the better. Well, I’m here to tell you we don’t all feel this way.

For the last four or five years, the wild mushroom hunting here in southern Franklin County has been consistently grim. It could easily be attributable to a lack of spring rains, as well as some of those years also being dry all summer. Granted, almost every year there has been a brief rainy spell at some point during the five-month mushroom season, followed by a flush of fungi, such that everyone is struck by the “unusual” plethora of mushrooms, and they’re left with the impression that it’s been a banner year. But if they’d been searching vainly since early summer for all the types of fungi that should have been there but weren’t, they would have a more appropriate