Autumn colours and mushrooms picking on a October Saturday hike in the woods...

Herlock

Herlock

Joined
May 13, 2015
Messages
841
Hi there! Since a couple of weeks I had in mind to go picking up some mushrooms before the end of the season. Then, caught up in the usual zillion family related activities, my permit, bought on line, was lost in a drawer :p. But yesterday I decided it was the time to go. Family declined, kids preferred cinema with grandparents and wife the gym :), so I was on my own.

The day started a bit moist and cloudy, temperatures around 10°C, when I parked the car in the village and headed for “my mushroom secret places” :D in the woods. Took an easy trail, an old forest gravel road and then climbed up in the woods, leaving the marked trails. As the morning hours run, the sky cleared out completely and a warm sun was shining :thumbup:. The fall colours in the woods are always magic, I love this season! As soon as I approached my spots, the mushrooms started to show up and the basket was soon full :).

Decided to stop by at a pic-nick area, quite desolated this time of the year, compared to the summer. Enjoyed a sandwich, a trail-mix and a cup of coffee (in the thermos this time) enjoining the autumn colours and the sound of the dry leaves trampled by a couple of other hikers. Took my newly arrived TiSpine with me. She didn’t see a lot of action but cut some mushrooms, food, plastic bags and pointed and carved a couple of sticks. Just for fun, the baby is under test :).

Since it was still early and weather was so fine, I decided to climb up a bit more to reach a pass and get some view from above the tree line. Saw the last cows not yet taken down to the valleys and even a late marmot still whistling to signal my approach. Also spot a group of magnificent edelweiss on the rocky terrains around 2000 mt. Drank from an ice cold spring, enjoyed the view and headed back home with my “treasure”. Mushroom risotto today :D !

Some pics, just to share :).


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Nice photos as usual ! I like the one with the leaves taking a bath in a mushroom !
Here in our Catskill Mtns is has been very dry .The river very low as they a releasing the minimum amount of water possible. Dry also means the normal fantastic colors are muted and be a short season.

Comments about Otzi's health continue - yet he was WALKING across the Alps you photograph !!

Check my post on "food & Drink " with Nonna, as you have interest in cooking !
 
I love the fall pictures. Since I moved to California, the only season that I miss is fall, with the leaves changing color and crisp air, fresh apples, etc.
 
Hi!

@ Mete: Thanks! I googled Catskills Mountains – which I didn’t know - and they look a great area! Pity for the drought you’re experiencing there but Fall is just at the beginning, maybe you’ll get the colours a bit later :)!

Yes, last month it was the 25th year anniversary from the finding. About Ötzti it’s almost a thriller story or a plot for cold case series! It looks now that the copper his axe was made of, might have origins in Tuscany Region and this would testify for a long distance trading/bartering existing already in those days. According to the Munich (DE) Commissioner of the Criminal Police, Alexander Horn, very likely, he was ambushed, when the arrow, which killed him later on, hit him in the shoulder. It has been speculated Ötzti might have been involved in some kind of fight, just a few days before being killed. This is told by what it looks like a defensive wound found on his right hand. Not showing any other wounds, likely he was the “winner” of this grappling fight. Ötzti also didn’t look as someone in fear for his life; this is told by the fact he had a long break in an open spot (where his body was found). It looks he set a camp and had a good meal (not a snack on the run), judging by what has been found in his stomach and around him at the finding site. So it looks his killing was a kind of “revenge”, when excluding robbery as a possible motive, since all his belongings were found on him or close by, on the site. Yes, he was walking, not on the run and it doesn’t look like he was trying to escape from someone chasing him. As far as his health, they found he was suffering from arteriosclerosis. As a curiosity, it was a patchwork of five different animals skins - calf, goat, sheep, bear and deer - to compose Ötzti’s clothing. This suggest that hunting was a complementary activity to breeding and farming.

Yes! Good posts in food & drink :). I’ll also try to post some regional recipes with pics.

@ Rockywolf: Thanks! Happy you liked the post.

@ Sasha: Thank-you! Glad you liked them.

@ William M.: Thanks for appreciation!

@GotSteel: Thank-you! Yes, mushrooms risotto was nice. I’ll go for some mushroom and chestnut soup these days, still several mushrooms to process :D!

@ Hunter55: Thank-you for stopping by and leave your comment!

@ Lambertiana: Yes, Autumn is also one of my favourite seasons. I like a lot the colours of the woods and the products of the season, mushrooms, chestnuts, pumpkins, etc. Yeah, I even like the first morning fog and the drizzling rain :). Time to put a few logs in the fireplace (for the lucky ones who have it) or, in my case, just switch on the heating and enjoy a book on the armchair, looking out on the streets, after a good hike or some running. Also like the smell of the rain in the woods and even the million colourful umbrellas in the downtown pedestrian areas in the city :).
 
Herlock, magnificent locale and photography. My son's college roommate was from the Italian Alps, he invited us to visit but we sadly were never able to get away.
 
I just realized my nice big Norway spruce tree is turning yellow ?? If anyone can help me please speak up !!!
Saw my two black squirrels today [ a rarity here ] and two black bear cubs. The cubs were near a known bear trail.
 
so nice. I've only picked mushrooms once in my life, during October in Finland. Frying them up was the best thing ever. Those look like chanterelles? Any tartufi? :)

I can just imagine the cold air, fried mushrooms in butter and sage and a nice roasted marmot/tabargan :D
 
Thank you for the beautiful pictures!

The fall colors are late here, but some trees are beginning to turn. You have inspired me to get out next weekend if the colors get going!

best

mqqn
 
Looks like you have some chanterells , I dont recognize the others . Its been an outstanding mushroom season here in Missouri .
 
Hi!

@ JB in SC: Thanks JB! Pity you didn’t manage this time but, you know, Italian Alps are not going to leave anytime soon, so you’ll have a life-long chance to visit :)!

@ Mete: Probably nothing to really worry about. I have the same with Douglas pines almost every year. Pines and spruces normally have a part of their foliage turn brown or yellow/brown in the fall :). With Norway spruce this happens less visibly but, sometimes, the entire lower branches die. These typically turn yellow or brown when the tree is "done with them," and this normally happens in the fall. This loss of older interior needles in the fall is natural. This process usually goes unnoticed since the needles on the inside of the conifer are concealed by the foliage on the exterior of the tree. Leaf drop on evergreens usually takes place gradually, but there are occasions when many leaves will discolour simultaneously, and the tree may appear to be dying. Norway spruce can benefit from magnesium, so you can spread some "high mag" pulverized or crushed limestone around the tree to help it. But not in this season, I’d wait for the Spring :).

@ Spyken: Thank-you! Yes, I find picking wild edibles it’s fun and relaxing activity, even though it’s fairly regulated here. I have a limited knowledge of mushrooms and really don’t want to risk :D, so I end up picking only porcino mushroom (boletus edulis); chanterelles and some russula, species which I am familiar with. That’s what ended up in the basket. Truffles it’s another type of picking… need to dig and possibly the help of a dog or a pig :). Marmots here are considered almost as pets so, basically, no one really eats them, it’s a big no-no. I ‘ve been told here it was considered a delicacy among some tribes of Natives anyway. Never had marmots, not even during my years in Mainland China, where I have been exposed to some interesting food nevertheless :D.

@ Mqqn: Thanks! Glad you liked them! Yes, do that! I find going out for a hike it’s always good for body and mind :thumbup:.

@ Dipbait: Yes, got some of those as well! Others are mainly porcini (boletus edulis) and some russula. Lucky you, it’s nice when the yield is abundant! Here I’d say it’s an average season; mushrooms were there but I had to search for them :p!
 
Still searching for N Spruce info .Did find some similar in the area and comments of spruce problems this year.
The colors are on the downside ..maybe next year ! Squirrels have taken all the walnuts !
Now comes the last event before winter -a rally, which for me is work as a radio operator as I watch the cars go by !
 
Well we got a surprise today Everyone has commented ! At a time when colors are fading away suddenly today the colors arrived ! Stange .
Pittsburgh now has a mite problem ,curtesy of China ! These go after oak trees.The oaks are major trees in this area .

I've been using my Mora Garber and liking it more and more . Even cutting [NOT batoning ] dried oak ,forsythia [pruned three times per year ] etc.
 
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