The parting gift of summer

Week 39 of the year was an intense experience. I waited all summer, in the drought, for the rain and the mushrooms. Then September brought it all down on me. On the third of October, I sit in my room and relax. I am organising my thoughts and planning the tenth month's activities. Because October could easily surpass even September. Twenty years ago this month was the peak of the mushroom season. The 40th week of the year will be sunny. The ground is sufficiently wet. It will not be cold, not even a light frost is expected at dawn. Everything is optimal for the fungi. Which means that, with the exception of a quiet Monday, I'm back to busy days. Now I have time to write about last Thursday, when I went mushrooming in the mountains. Theoretically, there could be a bronze bolete Boletus aereus living locally, but I haven't found it yet. It is, however, already present in the oak woodland on the brown forest floor 80 kilometres from my town. I took the first picture of the delicious mushroom in one of the oak woods. The bronze bolete is a warm-loving, true summer fungus that grows as long as the summer weather lasts.

The Caesar's mushroom Amanita caesarea, which is spreading northwards from the Mediterranean due to climate change, is also warm-loving. The photo shows the young fruiting body still in its full universal veil. However, the thickness of the veil, the shape of the egg, is a clear indication of what kind of fungus it is. It is a protected fungus in Hungary, but not in Romania. I brought three mushroom eggs home for a special experience. This is a good mushroom, it has a unique taste and a beautiful colour! In the 40th week it gets cooler and the warm-loving fungi disappear from the forests. I was happy to enjoy the gifts of summer on Thursday. The oak forests were growing mushrooms in astonishing abundance. The amanites were the most abundant. An amazing amount of blusher. I wrote about in the previous post.

The false deathcap Amanita citrina is really very similar to its life-threatening, deadly poisonous relative. Of course it is not edible! This year the mushroom of the year vote has already started. I voted for it because it is a relatively common, spectacular and interesting fungus. A nature-lover shroomer not only listens to her belly when she walks in the woods and fields, but also lets the mushrooms touch her heart. I like mushrooms. I walk over giants in the forest. Fabulous creatures that magically display their fruits in mild, rainy weather. A forest full of mushrooms is a real storybook. It feels very good to be part of the story. I blended into the forest so much that a squirrel didn't notice me until I turned directly towards it.

For the most part, life is a hard struggle and rarely offers a chance for real joy. The forest immediately surprised me with something good: on the very edge of the forest, there were huge young parasols Macrolepiota procera growing. And there was a carnival of mushrooms in the trees. Treasures littered the forest floor, and I was part of nature's magic. Life rarely gives me the opportunity to really feel part of something bigger. Human society has fallen apart. Our species is consuming the living world in its mad hunger, and the only true wonder is being destroyed by us. I am actually sad and burnt out. What passion I have left, I save for myself. I don't want to give any of it to another person! What you get from me is the routine and professionalism that comes from years of practice, a perfectly shaped role that I can play in my sleep. Yeah, I'm "Mushroommania".