A little break in the woods

The trees are changing in the countryside!

I started a new class this past week and it has been very intense.  We've had full days of class plus hundreds of pages of reading to do every night.  I haven't had much time to breathe.  To give our brains a little oxygen, not waste the beautiful weather, and explore a new place some friends and I decided to go mushroom picking today before we locked ourselves in the library.

We drove out into the countryside, arbitrarily picked dirt roads to go through the woods and parked in a clearing.  We scavenged the forest floor collecting mushrooms and checking a mushroom guide app on our phones to make sure they were not poisonous.  Surprisingly, we ran across many people out with their mushroom baskets collecting as many mushrooms as they could carry.  Mushroom picking in Southern Sweden is a popular activity for all ages.

Sometimes the mushrooms were hiding under the brush.

The colorful ones are the most poisonous, and the most beautiful.

We found a ton of mushrooms!

It was great to be in the woods soaking in minerals from the dirt as we cut and collected mushrooms.  Sometimes, as a student, I can only take in so much information before I need to just clear my head.  Going out exploring helps me do this.  Unfortunately, I hate mushrooms.  It was fun to have a quest in the woods and I enjoyed the activity.  But when I got home I only kept one mushroom (to say I ate what I foraged for) and gave the rest to my neighbor who was overjoyed to get a big bag of fresh mushrooms.

On our way back from the forest, we took time to explore the country side and came across an old mansion.  We talked of how much it must cost to heat the place, imagined ourselves as wealthy land owners back in the day, and appreciated the changing colors around the estate.

I had a lovely time clearing my head and seeing new sites.  Fall is really here and I am soaking it up as much as I can while being a student.  Now, it's time to get back to my reading.