It’s time for mushrooming
Summer 2017 has been cool and quite dry, which has led to a sad landscape in the eyes of a mushroom enthusiast. According to experts, the season will begin later this year, but also last longer in the autumn, naturally.
In the last few weeks, I’ve only seen a couple of mushrooms in forests, and they have been partly eaten by snails. No wonder, they have nothing else to eat there.
Last week it finally rained, and those few rainy days made forests burst with the gold of the forests, also known as chanterelles.
They were not very big yet, naturally, but four litres of fresh chanterelles made my end of summer. It also raised hopes that the season would continue successfully, and that there would be many milk caps I could gather and preserve for my Christmas dinner, as well as some boletuses for my boletus risotto.
Mushrooming is such a captivating and fun activity, a bit like treasure hunting.
Remember to make sure you know what you pick – and especially what you eat.
In forests, there is always a risk of getting lost. The Finnish Emergency Response Centre Agency has published a great mobile application to help people in Finland to get help as fast as possible in case of emergency (no matter if you sprain an ankle, get lost, get bitten by a snake, etc.). Your exact location is automatically relayed to the ERC, which speeds up emergency call handling.
More information here: 112 Suomi app
In addition, always take a high visibility vest and a light with you. And why not even a GPS device!