The first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere already arrived. Christmas is just around the corner, and I suppose many families will gather to celebrate it in harmony, love and sharing. Although there are so different traditions across the world, I think that being together and having a festive meal is common for everyone. I remember that my sister used to prepare different sauces, and one of them was the mushroom sauce. Of course, made of edible mushrooms, and bought in the market or shop. Finding them in nature for the meal has never been our forte, but seems that luck came to me a few days ago while making a short visit to the mountains. I found so many tiny mushrooms under the fallen leaves. I said luck, however, these are not suitable for consumption, so it is just half-luck :D
That half-lucky incident took place a few days ago, while we were still counting the last days of autumn. There is a natural water spring in the mountains from where we take water. While Mr Mipiano was filling the bottles with water I decided to take a look around. Finding mushrooms seemed very improbable, but anyway I strolled around and had my eyes on the ground. Would I find any?
The soft breeze whispered to my ears: Look under the leaves.
Oh, maybe it was not the breeze but the voices... in the end, it doesn't matter if it was the wind of my own thoughts, the thing is that mushrooms were there, under the foliage.
I had to remove the leaves to see them better. There were two little guys hiding in their improvised home, with the walls and roof made of dry construction material fallen from the trees.
Then I noticed so many of these hiding mushrooms and started to remove the cover from them. Unfortunately, while removing the leaves, I accidentally took out several little mushrooms from the soil. It was not on purpose, I always like to leave the mushrooms to live longer. I held them in my hand and later left them on the ground... Poor little things.
Twins:
One of the twins:
Tiny, little mushroom:
Another mini-mushroom suffered the accident...
I realized that I have to be more careful, and remove very softly the leaves from them, so no more accidents happened that day. All the other mushrooms survived the encounter with me. This one was hiding under the conifer needles, just a little bit of cleaning and he was ready to show itself.
In the process...
It had a hole in the cap. I am not sure if it happens because something eats it or the conifer needles make the hole.
Very close to this yellow mushroom I saw another, smaller one. It also had a hole.
A mushroom with a hole is also a mushroom, they count, but these are still not the only ones I saw there in the mountains. There was one pretty big mushroom, with a shiny hat:
A few smaller, not-so-interesting ones, like this one:
After all this cleaning stuff and finding mushrooms under the leaves, the major surprise was to see this couple. I passed by them several times that day, as the water spring is close to this picnic area, but I saw them just at the end of our visit. Do you see them from this angle?
And now?
It is the same lovely couple from the cover photo of this post. Aren't they cute?
I didn't touch them, not to make them harm, as I accidentally did to the other mushrooms while uncovering them from the leaves. I hope they will have a nice #FungiFriday celebration with all of us and 
