Peeling a Pomegranate

My husband entitled this photograph of me holding our bounty of wild harvested morel mushrooms, “Thanks be to the Heart of the Forest.” He couldn’t have chosen a better name. Each time I found and then cut one of these delicious little treasures, I said a blessing of thanks. Finding them is just magic. You can walk over one a dozen times and miss it, and then suddenly, “poof!”, there’s a mushroom.

The most amazing part of finding the morels, for the first time ever, was that a little toad pointed the way. We were actually hunting for ramps, Appalachian spring onions, and were in a patch when my husband noticed the tiniest of tiny toads.

After taking a few pictures of the toad he went to pose in the ramps for me. As he walked away the toad hung out for a couple of moments and then hopped off to my right — right past a morel mushroom. I would never have seen the first if it weren’t for my little froggy messenger.

נברך שכינה אלותינו רוח העולם שהחיתנו וקימתנו והיגעתנו לזמן הזה
Let us bless the Shekinah, Spirit of the World, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season.

For those wondering about the Kashrus of mushrooms, I actually looked this up a while back and found this great article. Apparently, they are considered doubly blessed because they substitute for many forbidden foods!

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