They say this is a good year for mushrooms. Our friend Natasha in Braslav has been taunting Alla for days in their frequent Skype conversations, showing ever-more-amazing mushrooms she’s been finding near her summer home. Clearly, we had to go.
As soon as we reached Natasha she whisked us into the woods. Alla and Natasha taught me to identify three mushrooms they considered worthwhile. They disparaged other edible mushrooms, saying they’d only bother with them in a bad year. This year, we’d only harvest “elite” varieties. I especially like the white ones, which they told me are safe even to eat raw though only I actually did it. Nobody here is used to the idea of eating raw mushrooms and most consider it scary. I grew up eating lots of raw mushrooms and don’t think twice about it when I have the right ones.
Not that I got a complete break from bending over and picking stuff up from the ground. When I went outside I saw that the neighbor had gathered her extended family to harvest potatoes from a field big enough to warrant the use of a tractor. I knew Grandma as a very nice permanent resident of the village. Her extended family spilled out over the field, with her son-in-law driving the tractor, other men collecting bags of potatoes, and women and children loading potatoes into bags. They worked hard and they worked fast, as if perhaps the Nazis were about to return and steal their harvest. Grandma saw me taking a few pictures and asked me if I didn’t want to help out. What could I say? I went home and put on my work clothes, stole Victor’s Wellington boots and put in a good hour or more. Finally I decided I’d had enough fun and had atoned for taking those pictures of other people working so I went home and cleaned myself up. As I finished putting my shoes back on in front of the banya, one of the daughters brought me a big bucket of nice potatoes as a thank-you gift for my labors. We’ve already been eating them now, and they’re delicious.
Still, we had come to hunt so we went out near the village again the following morning, not too early. Somebody beat us to the woods and we met her staggering out with more mushrooms than she could comfortably carry. Alla asked her to describe where she’d been hunting so we could start somewhere else, but she said she’d been everywhere. Undaunted, we plunged in. I struggled to find much that this local hunter had missed, but Natasha filled her bucket with choice mushrooms which she apparently locates by X-ray vision. She’s amazing. I, meanwhile, sat down under a tree with a book after I got tired of poking around in the undergrowth. I did gather more than half a bucketful, but had to resort to some second-rate mushrooms to achieve that.
Natasha and Victor sent us home with more than our fair share of the harvest, and I think we’re going to have a pretty delicious winter. As a matter of fact, we had a pretty delicious dinner just now.
For other pictures, click here and start in the middle of the album..
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