THE MUSHROOM HUNTERS

Yesterday summer returned to Berlin, tinged with the pale light of not-quite-Fall.  We seized the moment of its fleeting reappearance and took the S-bahn north for a day hike into the Brandenburg woods.  The forest proved to be a place where life in the form of fungi cycled out of death, and death in the form of trees claimed by a rising water table cycled out of life.  This Brandenburg woods seemed like a metaphor for beginnings that become endings and endings that become beginnings, a life cycle in a tableau of green, brown, and gold, with the occasional smattering of rose.  It was a beautiful day for a reflective, restorative walk in the woods--a day made for hunting mushrooms.

Let me set the scene.  We entered the woods in Borgsdorf and followed a well-signed path through a wetland where we encountered a trio of ducks swimming through a mirror- surfaced pond on which duckweed and fallen leaves floated along with them in silence.

Along the path we saw a tree teepee made of fallen (or perhaps felled) branches

and a stand of pine trees that had been scored for resin, both evidence of the human hand.

But the mushrooms!  My goodness!  Evidence of the hand of Nature was everywhere, in every variety, in every color, and in every shape, every thallophyte a testament to the emergence of life out of decay, a resurrection waiting to be revered.

There were charcoal gray mushrooms. 

 

Studded white mushrooms.

Orange specimens.

 

A Big White.

and a pine cone mimic.

Cherry red mushrooms.

Yellow mushrooms.

Speckled varieties.

 

A mushroom that had toppled over from its source, a fallen fungal filigree.

Mushrooms hanging out in groups.

Or perched on tree trunks and limbs.

A few stood tall.

We discovered, delighted, photographed, but did not gather, being quite attached to our livers.  However, I can claim to have eaten the tartufo nero our Italian neighbor gifted us, which my husband shaved and used in an egg pasta with truffle dish.

And I will gladly enjoy the four kinds of mushrooms our Polish friend put up.  She gathered them last Saturday not far from where we walked yesterday in the Brandenburg woods.  

But enough of eating and back to hunting.  As we continued our trek through the shady bog, the wetlands eventually coalesced and widened into a river that has claimed a stand of trees stretching for several kilometers.

Walking past these sentinels of what once were living trees, we followed this heather-edged path

until we came to a clear stretch of river, glinting in the afternoon sun.

We crossed a road and left the forest for meadows and blazing green fields, where we came upon and admired a woodcutter's split-face wood fence.

The day was as sweet as these sweet peas, into which a large bumble bee immersed itself, completely disappearing from view. 

Our 12-kilometer walk finished in Zühlsdorf, where we caught a regional commuter train back to an S-bahn stop.  From there we picked up our local line and soon found ourselves in the city, ending where we began, having experienced a diurnal cycle that brought to mind the life cycle we'd unearthed in the Brandenburg woods. 

Keep it real!  And wear your damn mask!

Marilyn