Thanks for sharing this.
You talk valiantly about living amidst people with a radically diferent sensibility towards nature. That is also my case, except there is no fracking around here.
So your exemple points me to complain myself less and stregthen my spirituality and life, wich is, i think, the best defense.
Good luck in your learning!
Where I live, northeastern Pennsylvania, mushroom picking has traditionally been popular with ethnic groups who brought the practice from their homelandsâmostly Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and all Eastern European types. Itâs become much more popular recently among the general population here. People do try to keep their best picking spots secret. Especially for morelsâtheyâre so scarce here that if you find a spot, you treasure it.
Interesting. I once read that, speaking of ethnic groups or cultures, mushrooms are either loved or totally distrusted.
Morels here are extremely rare, occurring mostly in the pyrinees or nearby. I never catched one.
As for the secretism, there is a popular t-shirt here that goes:
âMushroom picker. Donât ask me and donât follow me!â
There is no fracking here either, just people who think itâs a great thing to do. I have been in places where fracking was being done and witnessed the âfalloutâ from it. It is a mentality here that is troublesome, but I am trying my best to affect change where I can, even if it means spending a lot of money buying gifts for people that they would never buy but end up using because theyâre cheap and feel itâs better than spending lots of money. It is a difficult way to go and you put up with so much from people, including hatred, bigotry, prejudices, and even just something as schoolyard as name-calling.
While I have lived in areas that are very nature-minded and very âtake care of the planetâ kinds of people, I was not changing anything there. Yes, it is comfy like your favorite sweater, or t-shirt. It was warm and inviting like a fire on a cold winterâs day, but it meant nothing. A lot of like-minded people all living together is great for peace and a respite, but does nothing to solve the problems we have in the world and is why I keep myself in a place I really donât like, surrounded by people who donât understand me to try to affect the change that needs to be done. I am getting my comfort and peace of mind, as well as a great support system being in here. It is awesome to have so many people to converse with that all have the same kind of mentality and goals in common, even if we differ on how to achieve those goals.
In recent years, we had set up Bioblitzâs that were for spring and summer, but weâre going to have one in the fall this year. We are hoping to see a lot more diversity this time because of the color changes. We submit pictures of everything we find to iNaturalist. It helps raise awareness and we invite children, so their parents have to come of course lol Sneaky, I know 
Anyway, It sounds like Catalonia would be an awesome place to live in if we could go mushroom hunting. I love traveling and have been to many countries. It looks like I need to add one more to the list. lol
Ok, sorry that i didnât understand you properly about the fracking thing.
Thats very well expressed. I think youâre right, though i sometimes feel a little worn out by the hostility of those who radically disagree about our way of living and doing things.
It was my fault you misunderstood because I didnât clarify the first time. I am afraid my mind works faster than my fingers and I often leave key pieces of information out that would make it all make sense. lol Thank you though and I completely understand about being worn out at times. I think everyone gets that way from time to time. The hostility we encounter is so difficult to deal with. That is when respite comes in handy to recharge the spiritual batteries. I use my time meditating in nature to recharge my batteries ⌠grounding if you will. Hopefully, you are able to get a bit of a respite when you are feeling worn out and hopefully this place will help you along your path.
Sometimes I like to cook mushrooms, and then watch the Documentary Fantastic Fungi while I eat them. It really is a good time and it is amazing to watch footage if time lapse mushrooms growing as you are eating them. Iâve just stared cultivating some from a liquid starter that a friend gave me. I hope the spores like my setup.
Cool video and I love fun - guys 
lol Yes, I went there 
I will have to check out the documentary. I wish you luck in your cultivation process. I thought about growing some myself, but weâre lacking room at the moment. Thank you for sharing.
Fun guys, he he he. I am trying a small format grow technique. Modest yields, but no special equipment is needed. Small batch mushroom growing tutorial edited to fix link
I watched both videos. I couldnât watch the one and not see how it turned out I have a lot of totes here, but theyâre all well used, unfortunately. Still, it looks like it would be a fun project. I might just have to give it a shot soon myself Good luck on your project and hope you get a couple of rounds out of them or more. Be sure to take some pictures.
I plan on creating more magickal mycology things in the future as part of my ovate/bard/druid studies.
I was going to get a regional book, but maybe thereâs one thatâs more comprehensive since we like to travel too. It would be handy to have a good book to use. I might just have to ask 
Personally I would suggest regional guides. There are thousands of mushroom species so itâs almost an impossible task to make anything thatâs both comprehensive and useful. Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora is probably the closest youâd find to being up to the task - it covers about 2000 different mushrooms - though itâs a little old, doesnât have color pictures, and isnât really for identifying. I think the purpose was mainly to provide deeper scientific information when you already have a good idea of how to identify and navigate wild mushrooms. Itâs also way too large to be a field guide.
Otherwise Iâd suggest the National Audubon Societyâs mushroom field guide. It covers a good few hundred species and is actually meant for identification. But like all the other guides they publish its organization could use some work. But I really like the regional field guides published by Timber Press. They have lots of information, are useful for identification, and most importantly are actually good field guides.
Thank you very much. I will check out Timber Press then and stick with regional and just buy other regions when Iâm traveling to them. I should have known it would have been too extensive to write a comprehensive book about them for identification purposes. I have learned a few from the ones in our garden, so Iâm getting somewhere thank goodness. I only have one book that speaks about mushrooms here and itâs not about mushrooms at all, but about the poison in them. I have the set of books, âComprehensive Toxicologyâ Third Edition by Charlene A McQueen and it only speaks about the drug aspect of it and interactions, dosages ⌠etc. It is specified by the toxins that are in the mushroom, not the mushroom itself in these books when it is mentioned, so you can imagine that itâs not very good at identification at all. lol I keep meaning to get a book for mushrooms only, just so many books I want I always forget which ones I wanted at the time I go to get them lol
@HeatherMac Do you have All That the Rain Promises and More by David Arora? It contains common species that are found many places. It is a good field guide for identification.
The dude on the cover of the book looks kind of like Tim Curry lol I do not have the book but I added it to the cart to get. I have a few books, but theyâre all ebooks and theyâre all rather textbook. I have more than I thought I had, but that is definitely not one of them. Thank you for the suggestion.