took a long, long walk in the woods looking for porcinis. since the usual spots were empty, i figured the best way to find them would be to get lost, so i strayed from the paths i know already and headed deeper into the unknown. when i eventually started homewards, on what i imagined had been an arched trail, i glanced down upon something familiar.

i guess it's true then, that you wander in circles when lost. the same fungi. it made me laugh that i recognized them. what are the odds?

my updated direction led me to a haul of chanterelles, but no porcinis, until i was back on the timber road. there they grew by the wayside, just waiting to be noticed. oh well.

it's a good thing i'm not too squeamish, the mooseflies were everywhere. i lost count of how many i picked off my face and neck and beheaded, yet i still had four clinging to the insides of my clothes when i got back home. there's no telling how many may be hiding in my hair. once, an individual emerged after a week of being in the forest. i had washed my hair and even been in the sauna, but nothing gets rid of them. and i know for a fact some burly old hunter-men refuse to enter their realm nowadays. but i'm tougher than that.

i stayed in town all last week, at my mom's, doing laundry and eating lots of junk food, but also thieving apples from a secret garden of sorts. some seeds also found their way into my possession. i took lots of photos but it was so dark they are all more or less blurry. it was amazing, i had never seen cabbages that size, unreal. i don't even know what to compare them to. wonder what they've buried in there...

there are no urban photos to show. mainly because my home town is undergoing some sort of forced facelift and it feels ruined for me. why can't people see the charm of worn out things? also, someone has gone way too paving-stone happy out there. those streets are a nightmare to folks with that neurosis where you can't step on a seam or a crack. and to people who, in general, find that less is more...

today dad and i went to pick up my bike from a friend's yard, left behind when i moved. a vine had already begun to entangle it, like in sleeping beauty. i need to take it out on some rides to make up for the abandonment. it wasn't the first time, either.

i've been fantasizing about a particular kind of trousers for a long time, and even tried on a pair almost it, only in twill, last week. nearly bought them, but my intuition told me i'd find better ones. i'm so glad i listened because today i threw my hands in the air in glee inside a fitting booth after pulling on my new, wine red, skinny (and perfect) fit corduroy pants. i thought for sure i'd have to make them myself! this never happens. never ever. they'll be perfect for fall, which i heard starts next week, can't wait...

actually, i had a pretty perfect shopping trip, got everything i went looking for, even the elusive facial cleanser. no lemon verbena incense though, but i'm content with green tea. to top it off i found a 'bring them back something' gift for dad's lady friend, a pitcher that matches some glasses they have collected together, and dad found out at the register that it was on sale as well. i was on fire.

in the end, i'm happy to be back out in the country where the wild puffballs are.

even crowberries are plump and juicy this year. even though it hasn't been raining much all summer, the air has been hot and humid. i've seen some huge velvet roll-rims (tapinella atrotomentosa), too, almost a foot wide. they are a good fungus for dyeing, giving hues of blue, purple and gray. i read that frozen roll-rims give better colours, so i stashed a few in the freezer, but i have dried them previously whenever i've found them. i was also under the impression that it's a fairly small mushroom until now. the old ones all fit on my palm. the best thing about them is the foot, it really feels like velvet.

storm clouds are gathering and hopefully it will rain tomorrow. there are plenty of porcinis hiding in the earth, waiting for that drop of water. i have found some every now and then, but dried them because there have been too many chanterelles to eat instead, and porcinis improve upon drying unlike chanterelles. it sounds atrocious but i even forgot one in the fridge until it went bad. i'm overwhelmed by my haul.

now i'm going to watch a documentary about humpback whales. they are magnificent.

the situation in the garden, if it can be called that when everything pretty much grows wild and occasionally i rip out the most invasive weeds or provide some nourishment, is such that nothing i have sown has grown. or rather, everything is very small. my miniature chervil is in bloom, the sage is a towering two inches tall with four leaves each, my white-blossomed borage has produced a rosette of coarse leaves but no stalks, the radishes went straight to blossom as usual and now i have plenty of new seeds, again. japanese greens were all a no-show as well as red basil and roman chamomile.

but then again, what i haven't sown has grown. most remarkably the lemon catnip, which appears year after year, here and there, usually where something else was expected... in may i sowed some foxglove in an old pot with tiny seedlings already emerging, marking them with '?' and lemon catnip it was, despite having never grown in that particular pot before. no foxgloves this year. i sowed them all over the place. no calendula, even. that one perplexes me.

everything else flourishes, though. blackcurrants are like grapes, gooseberries on the small side but juicy and sweet and the echinacea that was planted last fall seems to thrive and is a butterfly favourite (needless to say, the seeds sowed in the same flowerbed, for white ones, never grew). rhubarb is still pushing out new stalks and the siberian blackberry has begun to ripen. it's a handsome berry, but rather bland. could be due to a shady position. raspberries need urgent picking but it's such a jungle out there... i keep expecting to run across machete-wielding explorers while making my way through the bushes.

every time i look at a dragonfly up close, i think "evinrude!"

clover has taken over the yard while my dad has been away. today i found a four-leaved one, lucky me...

i seem to have fallen into some deep, black hole again and i didn't even notice. that's the way it always goes, though. whenever i start thinking it's getting better, it's the verge. and i go over it time and time again. yet i always stay stuck. i can't fix this nor end it.

i have an opportunity to do something i've wished for my whole life, but instead of excited anticipation i'm just terrified and annoyed that i have to grab this straw now, without being able to enjoy the adventure. i'm not even sure if i really want to do it. and if i don't want to do the things i want to do, then where does that leave me? 

i desired this vintage berry scoop so badly today, but at the same time i knew i wasn't going to really use it, i like picking by hand, and it would be a useless thing to own despite being so damn gorgeous. that swallow really had my heartstrings in its beak already. but i left it behind because i don't have that dream house to collect wonderful junk into. no matter how much stuff i've bought for that home, it hasn't become reality. no matter how much i've believed in good, life has gone bad.

i bought a ball of twine instead. sturdy cotton to tie things up with. to keep my world from falling apart. i was a teenage sea scout, you know, i should know my knots.

the last surviving santana rose is finally in bloom, for the first time ever, after a couple of years of looking like it won't make it. i buried banana peels under the roots last year, and here we are. the buds are a deep wine red, the blossom an archetypical red rose, full and angular. the scent is faint but wonderful. i have plans for the petals in the kitchen, but it really is my father's plant and i have to at least wait for him to see the roses before harvesting.

i think i finally found some cinder conk, but i'm not absolutely certain. on the birch, it grew where a branch had been torn off, instead of right through the bark. other than that, it looks the part, char-like and fibrous. i haven't had a taste yet. if it's vanilla sweet, it must be chaga. between that and my reishi, perhaps i'll gain some vitality at last.

there are occasions when i wonder whether i've perhaps interrupted something, when i stumble upon peculiar scenes in the forest. i'm fairly sure the sprites of the woods just disguise themselves as part of the landscape on my arrival, hold their breath, and continue their lives when i leave.

...even their houses can do the same. i peered in...

today's chunks of joy. lemon & poppyseed banana bread with bog bilberries, and a goat moth caterpillar. i presumed it might be wise to put on gloves before handling the critter, and i found out it was — this guy eats wood so the jaws are extra powerful. they live inside trees for years, because it's such hard work to grow up eating the tough fibre, then finally they emerge, search (rather frantically, i might add) for a place to pupate and overwinter, and finally the following year they become a moth for about two weeks before dying. needless to say, they are a bit on the rare side, so spotting this gigantic, busy thing in the garden kept me entertained for a good while.

yesterday i celebrated the beginning of august by camping out on a blanket for the whole day. i had to drag my camp around all day long to stay in the sun, the trees have grown so tall around the yard. i was accompanied by a small army of dragonflies, little golden-green and rusty-ruby killing machines. they are so beautiful and impeccable. it's not unbearably hot anymore, and the air smells faintly of fall. august is my favourite month of them all.

gooseberries, raspberries and currants are demanding my attention at home, but in the woods the harvest keeps on calling me as well. sometimes i wish i could split into two so i could manage everything. i've also been wishing for an extra pair of hands to do the mosquito-shooing while picking. they have little regard for repellant, if there is a spot of skin untreated, they'll find it.

the past three months have flown by. i had big plans for sorting out my stuff, selling things, clearing up space... where did the summer go? it was just too hot to do anything i guess. i even drew a fancy mind map about my summer chores, but apparently that drained out all of the energy.

these are from friday. and it was not kebab, but falafel and fries.