Aug 12, 2020
Picking up Those Forest Beauties
An addictive experience
Have you ever been in the forest for a longer time?
You begin to have a sense of profound connection to the trees. The more you walk through the woods, the more you will approach the moment when your brain releases endorphins, to give you a sensation of euphoria…or how I call it, “forest euphoria”.
You know…when you find a stream of water in the forest, the sun’s rays are filtered through the leaves, you find some flowers with butterflies around the stream, some mushroom, and…moss, you lie down and rest…you fall asleep and dream about a forest full of fairies…
Let’s get back to reality!
When you are up to no good and you want to pick up those forest beauties, you will end up spending a lot of time in the woods. They trick you to go and chase them…and once you spot one of them resting near a tree, that moment is magical, maybe because these beauties are sometimes so perfect, so delicate, and so elegant!
I am talking about mushrooms…what were you thinking of?
The treasure from the swampy forest
Sometimes you can feel the place where you will find the next cute ones. Let me give you an example of what happened to me in the summer of 2020.
After a few hours of finding quite enough of them to get to the car and head back home, I have reached a more dense and also a little bit swampy area of the forest, with dense shrubs and that started a little bit to give me the creeps.
After traversing the shrubs, there was a spot where the taller trees were more scattered, and because of this, they let some of the rays of the sun touch the ground. In fact, some of the leaves of the smaller trees blocked the light just a little, making the rays more yellowish and giving you that atmosphere of a fairy tale, as you could see dust and small flies illuminated by the rays. I found a beautiful forest clearing.
As I was moving towards the clearing, I told to myself: “If I were a mushroom, here is where I would like myself to live”…and you know what? The next moment, near an oak tree, there was the biggest mushroom that I ever found. I couldn’t believe my eyes!
I picked it up and I looked, and behind the nearest oak tree…another oak mushroom, not as giant as the first one, but close enough. Then, at the next oak tree, a third one, smaller than the first two. Every piece of the trio was bigger than anything else I have picked up this year, so now I could go home.
Picking up those forest beauties was a unique and almost magical experience and picking up that “boss” mushroom gave me the most beautiful feeling. You can only understand it when it happens to you. It felt like I was Hercules beating the Hydra…or something like that…in the swampy forest.
Be there at the right time!
I go to the forest to find these beauties every time I have the chance, with the condition, of course, to be the right season for them and to get good weather. When the season starts, you usually see posts on Facebook that other people in your area found mushrooms and then you realize it’s time to get your ass into the woods.
It is ideal to get to the forest first thing in the morning, more precise at sunrise.
I have been to different forests (beech and oak) right in the first months of the pandemic, as there was nothing else to do because of the restrictions. I have isolated myself with my family in our countryside house and I was lucky to have a few forests nearby, just at my disposal and exactly in the first season of mushroom growth.
If you ever go to the forest, go early morning, on a sunny weekend just after a rainy week, preferably in the second part of July. You will find the beauties…all over. Picking them up is extremely addictive, beware and also beware not to pick up the nasty ones, the poisonous type. If you don’t know them well, it’s better to have with you a person who knows them.
When you find the perfect mushroom, you will end up like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, taking the beauty into your hands and exclaiming: “My precious!”. At least something like that…mark my words!
