The mountain mushroom season is starting

Four years ago on May 16, the first successful mushroomtour took place in the mountains. I took the pictures with my mobile phone that day. Despite the simple little camera, I managed to capture the mood of the day. It was a rainy day, big gray clouds were drifting in the sky, the forest was swimming in water, there were huge puddles everywhere, and fruiting bodies were hiding. Everything was fresh. I enjoyed every hour of the tour. It's a nice memory. It is absolutely worth gaining new experiences in 2023. It looks like we are still lucky with the weather and a Mediterranean cyclone is coming from the south-west. From the second half of May, a lot of mushrooms start to grow. There is an abundant supply of good, edible fruiting bodies. It is important that, as a beginner, it is really useful and safe to start picking mushrooms with an experienced mushroom picker. I inform you about my programs in Hungarian on my blog's Facebook page. My blog is proof that I understand mushrooms and have a lifelong relationship with them.

My portfolio

One thing I wish for myself: a creative job/work that can earn me money. But how can I find a prospective client if I don't advertise my activities. My intellectual freelance journey has been full of experiences and not only have I received, but I have given plenty. I am serious about social work, but I need to create the financial basis to continue. I don't have to save the whole world, I have to change the minds of a handful of people. That is a huge task too, and despite the Sisyphean task, I believe it is the one that is really worth it. Our things will be ruined, money will be destroyed, but natural knowledge will be preserved. Over the years I have trained myself and practiced my skills.

Although I am a reserved, quiet person, I have turned myself into an entertaining, well-styled, knowledgeable speaker to achieve my goal. I have over thirty lectures, which I update from time to time. I talk about my favourite subjects smoothly, with a change of tone, humour and seriousness when one is needed, and in a way that is easy to understand. True, my quick thinking makes me prone to rambling, so I'm grateful when the audience tells me I'm speeding up too much.

Theoretical knowledge is really enjoyable when it is put to the test in the field. I stopped counting my guided tours a while ago, I stopped at 100. Theory and practice are equally important for me. I am pleased to see that the term 'forest bathing' has recently become popular in Japan. I have experienced the beneficial effects of forest walking first hand. I definitely feel better after a hike. If I were a doctor, I would prescribe a day a week of nature walks for everyone. It is a significant improvement in physical and mental well-being.

Exploring nature is perhaps even more fun for children than for adults, because they are more adventurous and the forest offers them a wide range of interesting things to do. I'm also happy to take schoolchildren out in the field. This is even more important than you might think because of our urban lifestyle, where it is easy to become disconnected from nature and see it as alien to our living environment, which we all have a common interest in protecting. So we need to invite children even more into the green and show them the wonder of life.

The Morimus funereus and similar large arthropods are guaranteed to fascinate children. Although mushrooms are my special favourite, as a naturalist I know the local wildlife very well. Since 2017, the forest as a wonderful ecosystem has been my favourite subject. It's true, a mushroom hunter finds most mushrooms in the trees, because the forest is the perfect habitat for my favourites. It's a treasure trove of incomparable treasures, where I like to introduce adults and children alike.

I would be happy to expand my activities. The 21st century needs people like me who are intrinsically motivated to preserve and showcase these values. I am altruistic, many lectures and tours are free, but I need a financial base for my trips to collect material/expand my knowledge. Therefore, I would like you to support me with a commission.

The translation was done by DeepL.
Eredeti cikk

My fourth morel in 2023

The Morchella vulgaris is the fourth species of morel this year that I took a habitat photo of in 2023. Of course, I have seen all the species several times in previous years, but every spring it is a pleasure to look for them. The morels are very unpredictable due to their complex life cycle and the winter-spring weather, which has a major impact on their production. This year we are very lucky with the weather. The last time they had such a good season was in 2018. So we had to wait five years to get it right again for them and for us.
I love photographing mushrooms, it's an activity that is a lifelong recreation. I find the harmony between the fruiting body and its habitat relaxing.
There will be articles on mushrooms, but fewer, because I really went around the fungi topic from 2012-2017.

I will soon be moving my stories to a dedicated page and promoting them there.

My fond memories of the fall of 2013

I happened to look at a self-portrait of mine from 2013 and started searching through photo folders for the original photo. As I flipped through the hundreds of raw images, I also found the Őrség footage. I got stuck on these because the autumn moments from ten years earlier caught my attention in different ways. It is now the spring of 2023, the celebration of the resurrection of a mythical hero, Jesus, in the Christian world. This gives an extra layer of meaning to my reflection on autumn memories. I was 35 then, younger and stronger. Now I'm older and more experienced now. My current mental state is very different from then. Throughout our lives, we are constantly dying and reorganizing ourselves! We go through many small deaths and realizations before we finally rest. Yes, I know for a fact that my 2013 self was constantly transforming, and while it was gone, my current self evolved from it, which is not the same as the past self! If my young self walked into the room right now, we'd both be thoroughly shocked! And although we would recognize each other, my young self would have a hard time accepting that this is the one sitting here now, so this is what it will be like in the spring of 2023.

'Am I dead?' would exclaim. As for the current me: 'Now if we look at it philosophically, yes, you are dead, but as you can see, I am you, only ten years older.'
As we make our journey from the first breath of our birth to the last breath of our death, we ourselves are an ever-changing process, like a real river. My 2013 self would not describe these gloomy thoughts, his mind was on something completely different. At 35, one is still full of energy, and I myself was more active. In 2013, I completed the professional mushroom inspection course and my enthusiasm for mushrooms grew. It's good to look back on my 30s and think about what I want to do in my 40s based on my experiences at that time. Between 2008 and 2018, mushrooms played the main role. Yes, it was a nice ten year cycle in my life. Since 2019, however, something has gone wrong, and the tried and tested things no longer work and do not bring lasting joy. How can I put it: I have become more hungry and I want deeper content. I am shocked by the force with which my current self claims its right to better. I want a fuller life because I worked for it.

A lot of people think I'm arrogant, big-mouthed, and foolish for my rant, but it's a pretty bad idea to let a self-serving autocratic system debilitate and cripple an entire country. This goes completely against the desired ideal of the Western world, which almost requires a person to be the master of his own success. In an oppressive environment, where flattening and licking are the proven tactics, it is practically impossible to become an independent person. The system built by usurpers of power cannot allow too many independent people to exist and quarantines those who were able to be independent and able to think and act independently. In the previous post, I briefly wrote about what is wrong with Hungary. It is quite absurd to experience that there is apparently a country here, but when you move around and look for people, the illusion is shattered. I have to look even further and go for people, because an artist cannot exist without an understanding audience.

At the age of 45, I reached the forest from which I cannot find a way out. The experiences I've had are connected by the fact that I've really tried, done, experienced a lot of things and I feel that I've become more tired, heavier, more disillusioned. The kind of faith that belongs to a younger person has died out in me because I am no longer young. I wallow in emotion and self-pity, indulging in an unhealthy amount of sweets to physically relieve my emotional bitterness. I'm smart enough to notice my own stupidity. I am human, I have strengths and weaknesses. Looking back at my photos ten years ago, I can see how much worse a photographer I was. Taking many thousands of pictures made it possible for me to take photos quite well today. It's a realization that practice works. And that there is no recipe for quick success. If you want anything out of life, you have to go and practice and create what you desire. No one else will know what you want and no one will give it to you. I can take this advice too, I just have to figure out what else I really want as a middle-aged person?

Hungary does not exist

I will tell you the truth, as I see Hungary after 45 years of observation. I was born here, I live in one of the poor regions. I don't hold back, I'm not interested in embellishing reality. If you can't stand honesty, don't read on! The first fact I realized is that the Hungarians are such a mixed population that they do not have a common set of values, not even their language binds them together. The historical traumas, losses, resettlement of the population, completely disintegrated the population. The idea of becoming a nation imposed from above did not really affect the mixed population. It has remained a lie and has always served the interests of the usurpers of power. And people lived as they could. Yes, Hungarian flattens, adapts, pays, licks and so on. An interesting and bizarre image of a paranoid society expecting constant sucking emerged before me. Think of a Hungarian of Jewish origin who was born at the beginning of the 20th century. What a story and tragedy of a life!

Hungarians were deeply imbued with mistrust. It completely lacks any cohesive force. No, the Hungarian nation does not exist. An artificially created idea that never became reality. Unfortunately, as a result of the historical trauma, Hungarians have a convulsive desire for beautiful lies, the rewriting of reality, and fairy tales. If the reality is quite different, then at least let it be a fictitious Hungary created by word-magic. However, it is quite difficult for a fictitious nation to function and fulfill its life-sustaining role, since it is a fiction. It's no use imagining bread if it's not there. Bread is especially dear to the Hungarian people, especially to the landlords, for whose sake the entire Great Plain was dried up. Damn it. Selfish behavior is perfectly acceptable. Anyone who shows an unselfish desire to help, well, he's a unlucky man, the scavengers hang on to him like a tick. See the tragedy of Hungarians of Jewish origin. How the "honest" Hungarians distributed their wealth among themselves! I cannot take seriously anyone who usurps stolen property.

But here, no one ever takes responsibility for anything. How could you? There is no nation, state, country, nothing in common, what should the Hungarian be spiritually connected to? Here is a country that does not exist, as its population that migrates here and there takes no responsibility for anything, they are only excited by things that happen on their own doorstep, they attack their "friends" in the back without a twinge of conscience and lie to themselves that, for example, "we are of the same blood". That's why a clearly harmful figure and his mafia can survive by using the imagined image of the nation and amass large fortunes in his name. It is a rubbish heap blown by the storms of history, on which a fat rooster crows and whose inhabitants come and go. We are lucky with the EU, the economic community keeps this little gall bladder alive. Everyone go about their business. There is nothing here worth sacrificing a life for. And this Hungarian national illusion, which is only important to Orbán's populist trashman, shows that the nation as a conjunction has lost its validity in the globalized world. There are more and more travelers among us who speak several languages and try themselves in several countries.
Europe unites because there is no other way!

Your indifference and laziness will lead to our downfall

I went out into the countryside with my three students and we had a great time in the beautiful spring weather. The culmination of the discovery of the values of life were two baby bunnies. Of course, I took photos with zoom and for two minutes if we were near them. This is the first time in my 45 years I have seen baby hares, and I may never be lucky enough to see them again. It was a surprise moment, a gift. My students also understood how lucky we were. Fortunately for the bunnies, there were only four of us. Yes, it would have been a problem if my wish came true and there were ten of us in the area. I don't have any other income besides selling my knowledge, and yes, I need some money to buy the most necessary things, like my medicine, so it hurt that I couldn't earn enough today, but I realized it was better for the bunnies. What distinguishes me from other people is that I am able to imagine myself in the situation of another living being and that I see all living beings as having equal value. I respect other living beings, recognize their place in the world and get out of their way. Well, in the world of lies that our civilization has become, the "privilege" of consumption has blinded people.

Human has forgotten something important, that comfort has a price. The rise of the service industry, and how we let the satisfaction of our needs slip out of our control. Honestly, which of us has our own source of fresh water?! After all, clean fresh water is a necessity and depending on a single service provider is a voluntary servitude. Man is no longer the master of his life and is unable to take care of himself and his family on his own. Systems that are completely independent of his influence provide him with the goods necessary for life. Honestly, when was the last time you had a seed in hand and do you even have a small garden to cultivate? The two years of the epidemic have shown how vulnerable the global supply chain is, the two drier years have shown that modern agriculture is also exposed to the effects of climate change and that our highly mechanized world, which depends on energy, may be without electricity in a hot summer because the electrical grid he won't be able to handle too many air conditioners and electric cars! You dare not face the unpleasant truth that you are a puppet of systems independent of you. The myth of the man of action is overturned. There are no more brave heroes, only hysterical consumers.

Climate change is sweeping away our misconceptions, such as that we are masters of the world. No. We are a highly specialized, vulnerable species, which with its excessively high number of individuals and energy-intensive technology puts a deadly weight on the living world. The terrestrial biosphere is no longer able to absorb our waste and supply us with raw materials. The collapse of the ecological chain will hit the population gathered in cities unexpectedly, and they would do well to know that they live in death traps, which become unlivable places with the shutdown of supply systems, where you and tens of thousands more face the fact that they have nothing to live on. It will be an horror experience for you if you are not yet aware of the drastic changes generated by our species, when as a result of them our world changes greatly. If anyone complains that "Hungarians are running out", this is not the danger, but the rapid climate change and the total plundering of resources. Humans, all of us, together drastically transform the living world on earth, we ourselves eats its wonders because we want to live. Well, well, the golden age is over. Reality returns.

There is a lot of knowledge available, as well as serious professional work about our changing world. Find out in your own interest! Because you can change, you can slow down the change! But for this, every person must realize that the supply systems are unsustainable. At least half of the population must get rid of these! We need to significantly reduce our needs! Be very frugal with resources that are running out! The urban lifestyle puts us under interesting mental pressure, the vulnerability to money, the attachment to the supply systems, which can also be considered a chain of slavery. Those who are addicted feel this and are in a completely different state of consciousness. It is difficult to look out of a situation like this at all, to make yourself think, but it is important that you are the first to know that you are in danger. The decline of our civilization is marked by a series of crises. Meanwhile, a new historical era is taking shape. Anyone who has enough insight into the world sees the amazing swirl of the past and the future in the present. But there will be a future. That's for sure. Do you want your child to have a future? Then you have to act, because you do have a responsibility in what our world will be like soon!!! No, you can't point at anyone else.
And now see the simple beauty of the world.

Three morels in a week

I met three species of the genus Morchella in the 13th week of the year. On March 31, I photographed M. importuna in the city, which is a mushroom that grows once on pine bark chips. It got its scientific name from its surprising appearance. It has the same good and unique aroma as its relatives, but it is difficult to collect mushrooms in an urban environment due to pollution. I also looked for other morels in the city, because M. vulgaris and M. semilibera also live in a housing estate, but I haven't seen their developing fruiting bodies yet. But thanks to the surprise rains of the week, the habitat patch was sufficiently soaked, they will definitely be there in a few days.

During today's mushroom tour, we found M. semilibera for the first time. The four of us walked around the castle park. I won't tell you which ones, because unfortunately there are greedy mushroom collectors. Due to the lack of community feeling and respect for nature, human greed dominates them and such people take everything! For example, today's other crumb was completely picked off by an elderly couple in a larger habitat. Well, they were there, everything is free for them. The mushroom is in a nature reserve, so the guard has also seen traces of their activity, and zero tolerance will soon come into effect. Because it is still forgivable if the mushroom picker picks up a few fruiting bodies from the "rare" mushroom for tasting, but to pick everything! No, especially in a protected part!!

M. steppicola is a real specialty because, unlike its forest relatives, it really lives in the open air among the grass. The species arrived from the eastern steppe and indicates the forest-steppe in Hungary. Fortunately, I know exactly where to look and was able to show it to my students in another patch of habitat. Of the 6-8 fruiting bodies, we only picked one, which one of us took home to taste. It was the first time he had met the morel, so it was understandable that he wanted one. We just took photos of the rest. The fruiting bodies of M. semilibera were still very small, they were just starting to grow. In a week, they will be of pickable size.
It's great that spring mushroom aces can grow this year thanks to the surprise rains.