I was given the following day off, and was happy when Sányi stopped by and asked if I was interested in going mushrooming. It has been at least 2 months since the last time, and while the freezer is full of mushrooms, I missed the exercise, fresh air, and relaxation of the hunt. It is nearing the end of the mushrooming season, with only the St. Michael/Honey Fungus (potypinka) and the Wood Blewit (lillatönkű pereszke) still around. The terrain was extremely wet and muddy. Wood blewits are extremely difficult to spot in the field, well-covered by tufts of grass. You only see the purple after you pick them, on the stems, while the cap is grey and blends in well with the surroundings. It took me a long while for me to start seeing them, and only then in among the sloe bracken and not in the fields. They also tend to like the same areas as the St. George mushroom - another blewit. Even though it was past its edibility date, I was very excited to have spotted my first St. Michael mushroom on a tree trunk by a big puddle a bit further on from a group of wood blewits. In the end, we collected about 3/4 of a bucket.

Sányi was also game to go the next morning. I met him for a palinka at the Italbolt at 7am, and we were off in a direction and territory I had not yet been. We concentrated on the fields, but since a tractor had been through just a short time ago with a chopper, we did not have much luck. Sányi had assured me that hiking boots were in order, not wellies, but of course he forgot to mention the stream crossing. He ended up carrying me across the Rakaca Stream on his back. I think a lot of people would have paid to see a photo of this, but I was not about to ask him to pause in the middle for a selfie. With no luck along the banks of the stream either, we headed through thick bramble to the far hills to try to harvest a big tree mushroom similar to the Chicken of the Woods but much darker. Unfortunately, the wild boar or another mushroom hunter beat us to it. On the way back, we did have some better luck, finding a few before celebrating back at the Italbolt with a couple more palinkas. I was suitably squiffed by the time I got home and it was only 10am. After I sobered up a bit, we continued to turn over the soil in the vegetable and flower beds, and plant the over-winter crops such as garlic, horseradish and salads. We also pulled up the last vegetable in the garden, some small celeries. We were a bit careful with our digging because earlier in the week Kata had called me at work to tell me she had been digging in the former potato patch and unearthed a leg. My first question was "human or animal?" She was still unsure, but it was fresh. It seems a fox had buried a wild boar leg and "refrigerated" it our garden for later.

Later on Saturday we went to get the car checked and on the way back stopped in at our friends in Perkupa for a load of horse shit. Marika and Guszti loaded our car up with 9 large, and very strong, bags of dry horse manure for the garden. Also a bag of Dalia bulbs, some strawberry and raspberry plants, and a bag of iris bulbs. In return, we brought them a big potted chive (one of the only things they do not have in their garden) and a load of purple salad seeds. While the dry stuff does not have any odour, we managed to get it everywhere from Kata's hair to in my ear.

Kata cooked up a gomba paprikas with the mushrooms, as well as an apple-butternut squash crumble, while I threw together some broccoli cream soup and a wood blewit omelet.

On Sunday I split the last of the big stumps we had dug out for firewood and cleaned up the stables before we paid a visit to our friends Jeroen and Lennard where we were treated to a big lunch of lettuce soup, lentil salad with peppermint, beets, and a pie for dessert. We then collected the last of the apples and walnuts before we took a lovely hot sauna.