Season summary

As the nights get colder and I probably won't have much time to continue mushroom hunt this year, therefore I think it is good time for a summary of this mushroom season. It was great. Both in terms of hunting for new, odd, beautiful and weird mushrooms to take photos of, as well as in terms of results of edible mushroom hunting. I've already posted many of recent results in first category, so let's make this summary about edible variety.

This year I've mostly stayed in the Mokrznia Forest near my garden as a source of edible fungi. It is convenient. Even if the rain catches me, even if I land ass-first in the muddy water or get scratched by various vegetation, I can return to summer house, take a shower, eat and drink something hot, change to dry clothes, even stay a night if needed and only then get to the car and return to the city. I know the forest very well, local cats and dogs, that would otherwise jump on me, know me, half of the neighbors are family (descendants of the brothers and sisters of my grandmother). There are moose (at least a pair), ravens (also a pair that got two young this year), roe deer and boars (although those are mostly visible by the mess they make, I've only seen their tails couple of times). Finally, pretty much no one visits that forest, so when mushrooms are in full bloom I don't have much competition.

Now the cons. There are three reasons that the forest is abandoned by visitors (actually there is one more problem, but not limited to that particular forest). First, it is a patchwork of old and new forest, long forgotten orchards, fields and grassland where grass grows between 50 and 150 cm tall (also full of blooming goldenrod this time of the year).

The fields and grassland are slowly claimed by new oaks seeded by the birds (I find new tiny oaks and acorns in the garden as well every year) and aggressively colonized by blackthorns. The latter make impassable islands that you have to walk around - that's part of the second problem. The grass is hard to come across on its own, but among it, especially on the boundaries between forest and grass, blackberry bushes have their place. And not the fruity kind, but the one that grows mostly into strong vines and sharp thorns. The forest itself is also not a clean one where you can stride leisurely while looking for mushrooms from afar, no no.

There are ferns and horsetail everywhere, grass and blackberries as well. The edges are formed by hawthorns and dense groves of hornbeams with some young oaks, spruces and birches. More places that are hard to pass at times. Third problem, even the name of the forest alludes to that feature, is the water that is everywhere after the rain. The soil is mostly clay, so when it is raining, usually dry forest turns into myriad of pockets of water that stay like that until water evaporates (some temporary streams form too, but they carry maybe tenth of the water, hardly anything sinks in). Large swaths of land and most of the forest roads turn into muddy swamps.

To sum it up. Trees mixed with grassland so it is hard to just stay in the forest, hostile vegetation that wants to stop you or cut you to shreds, turns into swamp after the rain. The fourth problem - deer fly. It feeds like a tick, it looks like a tick but has wings! Not a good flier, so easy to shake off, but there are many. While I was bitten by the tick maybe three times in my life, these creeps keep landing on me every minute even when I'm breathing and sweating DEET. All the problems add up to one plus - the visit in such forest is a good excercise, you feel as if you crossed at least three times the actual distance :o)

This season I've chosen to keep visiting part of the forest that is a bit further away, takes up to fifteen minutes through the grass to reach (thankfully sometimes foresters drive their equipment through the tall grass and blackthorn bushes leaving the trail for me to use). The main trove to find are various boletes, mostly leccinums, especially red-capped but also birch and hornbeam boletes. Porcinis can be found as well, although they are not that common.

_{Can you see them in the grass?}

_{Too old.}

Then there are couple types of slippery jacks. I prefer the most slippery ones, because when you find one, there are ten nearby (and you've already stepped on three), even though there is a lot of work with removing the skin from their caps later on.

_{Somehow they are loved by slugs, I've found a lot of such mushrooms that had all their tubes eaten clean.}

Finally, by far the most common in Mokrznia Forest this year, and also my favorite, are saffron milk caps.

Actually these are most likely couple different species, since they differ in such details as level of orangeness of the milk, some have empty leg, some turn green-blue when damaged etc. But they are all edible and delicious.

_{Oh, what is it? Another saffron milk cap?}

_{Nope, definitely not. Why do they have to grow only couple meters away from the real ones?}

How delicious they are fried and mixed with scrambled eggs!

_{Preparing for supper.}

I was getting so many that even after four greedy gutses got satisfied, the rest had to be pickled (what a waste). Finally I was banned from bringing more mushrooms ("you'll be cleaning and processing them yourself!") but that didn't stop me. I just brought next batch to my aunt instead :o)

A little bonus. I've spent first week of vacation (end of September) in Karkonosze. Among other places I've visited nature reserve Wąwóz Lipy, where there were plenty of mushrooms, including edible ones. Since it was nature reserve I did not pick any, although it was apparently not stopping locals as I've encountered couple with buckets filled to the brim. Nature reserve is one thing, but surrounding grassland is a free game, right?