Picking Mushrooms: Day 2

To tell the truth, people are very cautious about picking mushrooms as far as there are cases of serious mushroom poisoning. But we are (I mean my family) accurately keeping the main rule: when in doubt go without! This time we were doubtless about the mushrooms we were hunting for since they were porcinos.

Some things to know about penny bun:

First, it's quite a rare mushroom and it's better to know the places where they grow prior you go there otherwise you can waist your time and gas in vain. At least this rule works here in Kirovograd region, I heard there are lots of them in the West part of Ukraine, in the Carpathian mountains.

Second, they primarily grow in deciduous forest though not inside but on the edge of it. So there is no use to make your way through the thickets. Enjoy your walk (unless it's not 10 km long like mine).

Third, "the early bird catches the worm" is the rule working for mushroomers. Be ready to wake up early because, believe my experience, there are very many people who are eager to get porcino. The reason is obvious: in mushroom kingdom porcino is the king. So, when we came into the forest there were already 'early birds' picking mushrooms and it wasn't very funny to find a stem without a mushroom itself, however we found this big guy:

Hope it will help to imagine how big it was.

Then some more

In the end we've come across suillus again!

And we ended up with three buckets of them what indeed mitigated the lack of porcinos.

Some views from the forest:

P.S. By the way, this is the very forest we went in summer.