When my daughter and I found our first morels last week, I was kind enough to send a note about it to Mark Brown.

Yeah, that Mark Brown, the lead columnist on news side.

I didn't hear from him for a few days and assumed it was a dagger to the heart. Bad assumption, especially with somebody with enough fire in his belly to make the lead columnist for the country's 15th largest paper.

On Monday, I had the photo above waiting for me.

With this short and sweet smartass comment: ``recognize these?''

I did. Also admired the size of some of them. I sent a followup back asking to use the photo.

He said go ahead and added: ``My brother Mitch and I came up with those Friday in, let's just say, LaSalle County.''

Now, I suspect that is true if you consider ``LaSalle County'' not strictly a geographic entity and more of a generic designation for anywhere along the Illinois River from Hennepin to Havana.

I'm not suggesting he was misleading me or us as much as maybe just protecting his brother's spot. And I do think it is his brother's spot.