Wet Woods

May in Missouri is known for its dearth of mushrooms after April's rush for morels--which I ended up buying, 10 ounces at $2 an ounce. That's all I wanted: a mere taste. The question is, when their season is over, what's next?

Some corkin' thunderstorms poured and hailed on us the last few days, and in the saturated woods, enjoying water as it rushed down rills and waterfalls, incidentally eyeing every tree and square inch of earth for edible fungi that I knew would not be there until June, today found only buggy and waterlogged oyster mushrooms on my favorite oyster log, and some inedibles: fawn mushrooms and turkey tail. But then my eyes alit on this elegant ivory-colored creature, about nine inches long. According to the handbook, because it was living in wet forest-floor leaf litter it could be a Rough Earth Snake or Western Earth Snake, or a juvenile version of another kind of snake. It was patient while I took several different glamour shots. I was lucky to have been looking at the ground, and pleased to have met  it.