The beauty of Mushroom hunting 🍄‍🟫

Have you ever thought about mushroom "hunting" to enjoy life for 3 hours far from daily stress?

Let's be honest: We're all stressed because of xyz. That's why it's even more important to actively enjoy calm moments. Hunting mushrooms is one of those moments for me. It’s about being curious, breathing fresh air, and enjoying nature.

If you want more arguments for why you should hunt mushrooms, I invite you to read :)

On a foggy Saturday morning, my mom, my boyfriend and I decided to go mushroom “hunting.” We took the dogs and drove to the highest mountain near us. You cannot imagine how surprised we were when the most beautiful weather awaited us! Due to the height, the fog was beneath us!! We we really lucky and I learned that it's often good to not cancel, because of bad weather as I may get surprised :)

Let me tell you the first reason why I love "hunting" mushrooms: It's an activity you can do together. Just grab a friend, your boy- or girlfriend, mom, dad, brother, sister, anyone! You're discovering together the forest and it's the most amazing feeling when you can find mushrooms :D

For me, being in nature is the second reason. Breathing the fresh, cold air, that "tastes" like forest is nice! I also like exploring the forest apart from the usual paths, as you cannot find mushrooms on the tracks.

When we went mushroom hunting, it was autumn, and all those colorful trees gave such a nice vibe. It's really beautiful, and I hope you get a little feeling of what I mean through my pictures.

Another positive aspect of being in nature is to calm down. There's no need to rush and especially no need to be on the phone, doom-scrolling. There's not a lot of distraction, only you, your mushroom hunting partner(s) and nature. You can hear the wind blowing through the leaves, some animals (often chirping birds) and your footsteps. For me, this whole setting is very calming and also gives me great energy.

The last aspect I wanna to share with you is that I am actively learning from nature. For me, it's really interesting to know which mushrooms could kill me and which I can eat.

It's fun to recognize them, and slowly, I am starting to understand where mushrooms grow. (Hint: Chestnuts are often found at the transition from mixed forest to coniferous forest). We’re living in a world where people (myself included) recognize more company logos than tree species. I don't like that about myself. I want to know my habitat better and that's why "hunting" for mushrooms is a great activity.

Some random facts I learned about mushrooms:

Garlic mushrooms exists (Yes they taste exactly like garlic!!) aaand there's a mushroom called Bovist.

Bovists are eatable when they're young & white. However, once they are old, you cannot eat them anymore, buut you can slightly hit them to push the dust outside (this dust is supposed to be really healthy). Guess what I love doing? Stepping on them to push as much dust out as possible. On the left you can see how much dust comes out :))

I know this will sound very childish to some of you, but as Dot Fisher-Smith is teaching it to us. We're on this planet to experience being human. Remember yourself as a kid. You used to be curious about the world. So much was exciting, and you were fascinated by the beauty. Now, we're so stuck in our heads and problems that we forget to see the beauty around us. So, I am proud of being a little bit childish. It gives me a great energy!

I will write more about this topic, as it's really interesting. I'll add the link to it.

Thanks for reading and taking the time! I really appreciate that. Also, this blog post is the very first one without using AI to help me write it better. I want to trust more in my own abilities to formulate my thoughts because every time I OR you as well use ChatGPT, you acknowledge that GPT can do a better job than you. Important! This does not mean I hate good technology, I use it for many other use cases ;)

I'm very thankful for this experience and as you may guess, it was really tasty!! 😋