CHAGA SEVEN: HOW YOU NEVER KNOW FOR SURE, I’LL BE A SON OF A GUN, AND NATURE HAS THE LAST LAUGH
This morning was different. We missed getting out to the fields and forests yesterday, which is a rarity. So I and the dogs headed out there as soon as we could and went deep and far into it all. The spring is just about to begin its blooming, and there is some irrational evidence of this in the air. Some rain could be felt, and it will not be long before the real storms and multi-textured clouds come, before the dusk makes brilliantly odd and intricate shapes with the departing sun and the cumulus clouds that make up the firmament’s ceiling paint. So we went here and there, atop this summit, down that incline, along and around a favorite sandpit, and then began heading slowly, pointedly but still placidly back in the direction of our entrance. On a whim, I decided to go down a steep valley wall. This was where I had encounter the two men originally trying to harvest a huge chaga mushroom, perhaps thirty feet up a tree. It has been a while since then, and I wasn’t
