My turn. One photo, three google streetview screenshots.

Okay, new one:

Not a long but a pleasant walk. Except the northern wind wanted to freeze off my heda no matter of hat and hoodie and scarf and stern expression. Nothing interesting happened if not for the weird weather.
#1. This shit there ain't snow. These days we have foggy weather but with minuses so the vapor froze onto the vegetation. Now the sun is shining and the wind blew all the frozen fog off the trees and bushes as if snowing.
#2. The whole forest was white and shiny in the sun. Tried to take a good photo but didn't werk toward the sun. But something like this.
#3. Then turned around (well a couple of dozen meters further), away from the sun and everything looked like this, as if there were nothing on the trees.

Today was a first day when with real snow here, but this year it happened only few times in December and melted quickly.

It is still higher than zero, so it will melt in few days, but at least it looks like winder. Such global warming, how dare it.

I've had some personal tasks in the neighborhood (like going to bank and shop), so I decided to not touch the car and walk on foot.

(technically, it isn't real outdoors, but whatever).

>>33972

1 - the oldest building in this district (1938)
2 - the famous Russian Post with some shops. Just an example of typical landscape in districts with 70-s buildings.
3 - typical old-style school
4 - another school (or kindergarten, can't remember)

>>33972

And last.

Some government-licensed street art on small maintenance building (it is transformer substation or such).

Looks like it is themed in Pushkin's "Tale of Tsar Saltan" style (at least woman with kid in barrel is from there).

I don't have many photos. In fact only these four. We were too engaged in talking about life and shit to notice interesting details in the landscape. Tho I saw a long stretching patch of pines where I should return (even tho I need a similar day hike for that).
The frost on the vegetation was nice, as always but fog limited our vision. Found some mistletoe, this one was nice round ball. Can you tell I took the photo from the south? I can't. The foggy background is just too bright.

Figured I would take some pictures whilst I was at work today.

haven't done one of these in a while. looks like the old thread is still alive but on autosäge (>>16734). I made this trip last year and had the images laying around ever since.

1+2) me and suburban train leaving the railway station
3) surface for the cars, walkers have to go underground
4) getting to the old town

Lenzburg is in the outer suburbs of Zurich. It has a small historical center and a castle.

5) old gate was turned into flats

German language differentiate between historical castles and call them "Burg" and chateau style buildings like Versaille and call them Schloss (or Schloß in Germany and Austria because they use ß instead of SS)

9) town hall
10) a Swiss fountain needs a little statue in the middle
11) regional police and court building in early Bauhaus style
12) castle in the back

as with every castle around here it once belonged to the Habsburg. They've got this one for free because the line of the original owners died out.

13) kot 1
14) former phone booth turned into art

walking to the castle

21) future kebab
24) stone age grave was found here

impressions of the castle outside from the entrance

29) looks stable

33+34) if you want to read the English text I can upload a higher res picture
36) bridge is lowered, so lets storm the castle

38) elevator system that runs on humans
40) finally inside, just cost me 14 mountain gold units. that includes the entry to the museum. the upkeep is expensive, so I'm OK with it.

41) most of flat Switzerland is ugly suburbia

45) you can recognize the horseshoe around the old town
47) you can see a chapel on the hill on the other side and a cloud of a nuclear power plant

>>37163
>Those flats above are ugly
could be worse, it's not the worst idea to bring back life into these dead old towns with people living there as shops can't survive against online shopping

48) more new gommieblock units

52) dog bless
53) garch has a swimming pool

55) it's really nice to walk out here on these hills

garden and inside court

64) they did bake some medieval style bread for kids on the fire earlier that day
66) baby dragon
67) the Bernese bear emblem is everywhere, the castle and region were under Bernese rule until Napoleon created new Cantons

finally inside the building that is a museum nowadays

71) heatenings

72) poo in the loo, a concept still too advanced for some regions in the world

77) behead those who are hungry
78) calendar of 1791

82) made it to the war room, never mind that Switzerland is of neutrals

86) why worry
87) these oligarchs could afford spices

89) I don't remember the
90) the castle was in private hands during the 19th century exchanging the owners after one died and their kids didn't want to keep the castle. so a rich burger bought it and thus the castle became American sort of.
91) chain mail to wear for visitors, which I did and yes it's really heavy

93-94) me wearing the chain mail, not included here :DDD

100) prison door
101) prisoners

102) prisoner graffiti
103) prison loo

109) conquest of the castle from the Habsburgers, colorized

moar

119) mediaval elevator, oh wait
120) room of the knights, you can rent it

121) or marry there

125) you can walk around the castle when it's closed or you don't want to pay money for the entrance

132) himmelsleiterli = stairway to heaven with Swiss diminutive -li added at the end. Germans use it to make fun of Swiss, Swabians use the -le ending.

133) Swabians say cow-swiss to make fun of us and we say pig-swabians to make fun of them. yes, that implies that the other side fugs these animals.

140) chilling kot

141) kot escaping
142) walking through new settlement

mixture of architectural styles

150) bee hotel
152) back at the railway station

154) private museum that had an exhibition about fake news
155) Pinocchio is a good boy
156) new gommieblocks where they used to make canned food

158) kill me
159) the end visiting new buildings while waiting for the train

extra images of kot on pole

Some random photos from few last weekend trips to dacha.

I've reanimated old bicycle with help of WD-40 and sometimes drive for some time when I'm tired of mowing grass or doing some unnecessary work.

3 - some house got fire few weeks ago. Locals say that owner tried to lit furnace first time from winter, steel chimney overheated and fire started. It was pretty expensive house, and looks like it must be razed completely now. At least fire didn't spread to houses nearby.
4 - an old ZIL that stays there forever.

2 - an unexpected guest. I like cats, but there is a chance that cat will get into house when I away through open doors, and I'll lock him for week when I'll drive home.
3 - a bee
4 - pretty large bumblebee

>>37486
>Is it a "mountain bike" type of "dacha-bike" (with wide seat and pedal break)?

Classic old-style "dacha-bike". I never rode on any two-wheeled thing that has gearbox, and maybe never will, because buying new one while you have working one isn't a good way to spend money.

There actually few bikes here, one is my old almost-Soviet "Salut", others are from some distant relatives who often visited dacha in past. Of course all bikes are old, so dacha is alternative to dump for this. Sadly, my bike is still needs repairs - tires gone flat and I couldn't pump them, looks like air valve is broken (and it has so-called Dunlop valve, not typical car-style).

So I use some newer bike, it is slightly small for me, but still ok.

>Oh dog I'm doing this every day for months now. Some weeds started to grow which I really don't want among my lawn, but I only can exterminate them by pulling them out one by one. But as the grass grows around I don't want to thread on them and make it harder to cut.

I can't start to use my small lawnmower and still use electric trimmer - grass grows too fast and after a week it is already to big for lawnmower. I'm not into gardening though, so at least don't mess with specific weed removal, just trim everything except ones that look as cultured plant. And even this is a tiresome task.

>Your well doing well?

Yes, it still well. Older planks need replacement, but they will be ok at least for year. There are plenty of other problems, like septic tank that is used for sewage fill with water in rain, and looks like some heavy digging is required to find source of leak and replacement, so well will wait.

testing imagemagick conversions

ok seems to work, testing the other 2 pics on the .net address

So I took a stroll today. Well, most of it was quite rushed, but I wanted to get to a valley what I've never hiked along it's entirety before. Many of my photos are kinda blurry, and most have a green tint, resulting from the light shining through the lush vegetation. I tried to clear out this tint with GIMP, but I've no real good photos from the valley. The air was quite humid, maybe it added a little haze as well.
I thought the trail will be more clear but it was overgrown, I guess tourists rarely wander on that path. I had to battle with flies, mosquitoes, and those louse flies I talked in another thread about (Hippoboscidae). There weren't much to see down there. Along the valley the two ridges run about 200 meters higher, and two hills rise at least +150 meters above those. The banks are steep, rocky at many places. Due to the thick foliage the Sun was rarely scorching, but still was hot due to the lack of breeze.

Pics #1 and #2 - down at the bottom of the valley, where the path runs.
Pics #3 and #4 - the hillside.

#5 - A large beech, with a bunch of Fomes fomentarius. I wonder if one could climb that with the help of those.

#6 - A stele raised by a long lost tribe of Homo Sovieticus, who worshiped their god Concretus.

Upon one of the hills - I climbed finally - found some subjects for photos, on the ground this time. No plaguing green tint here.

#7 and #8 - These are fun guys. I've not yet identified them, and I might not bother. But look at that little dude climbing thorough that red hat in the right back.

#9 - Now this was a big guy, the stag beetle. I think it's threatened by extinction. I probed it carefully with a stick, to make sure it's alive, since was very still. But he was fine and dandy.
#10 - Scarabs were everywhere, probably getting of that good boar dung as much as they could. This fella shined particularly nice, first in very blue and then green, so I decided I take a photo of it. Well, at least something to post.

Well, that's about it I could share. From there I headed straight home and didn't give much consideration to my usual surroundings.

>>38383
>foliage
I think that's not the vegetation on the ground but the branches and leaves on the trees. To that effect the narrow valley with the steep hillsides added some with the trees adding layers and layers the Sun had to shine through.
At ground level there weren't bushes just herbaceous plants, nettles I recognized, others I didn't. Here's a zoomed out photo of that beech, it shows the undergrowth some.
Those four images aren't really representatives, the whole valley is about 4km in length and they show a selected points which offered more view.
>You forgot those.
Hory shit, I did. Here pics #9 and #10.

>>38405
Well yes. Density depends on how that particular area fits in the forestry.
Some places are deliberately left untended, they can be tricky to pass through, in my experience those places don't have thick tall trees, even old trees are stunted, spreading along the ground, leaning much to a side.
Those which which are used for logging, they can cut them bare, or with a thinning out technique. Or a combination of the two: first they cut it clear, then as saplings grow they thin it out a little (these places are very thick with saplings), then years later again, then again, until they get a clean, open piece of forest with straight, tall, fairly thick trees.
Maybe I'll try to collect examples.

>>38799

Mushrooms can be pretty dangerous, especially because it is often not easy to distinguish toxic ones from edible, and there are plenty of variations. But consequences may be fatal, easily. Mushrooms also very good in accumulating everything from outside, including not so good components.

So, there is a simple rule: if you don't 100% sure that it is edible, don't even try.

For that reason I completely ignore Agarics (with laminaes on bottom side) and recommend to harvest only Boletes (with small tubes/pores on bottom) in our local region. There almost no toxic Boletes here that may be confused with edible, but plenty of confusing Agarics.

Of course it is only about forest mushrooms, shop-made are ok (at least I hope so).

I've had tourist/personal trip to Sankt-Petersburg (SPb) for 4 days, and here is some small IWO.

1. Bologoe train station. Some kind of symbolic place, because it is placed almost between SPb and Moscow.

2. View from hotel window (actually, it was a private flat available for daily rent). SPb is all about rivers and canals, some say that it is Russian Venice, but some say that it is just a swamp. But water is everywhere, at least in center.

3. Metro. Almost same as in Moscow, but some station are closed-style, have walls with doors between trains and platform. But this is common station.

4. That type of station, with doors.

>>39623

Rainy weather is a feature of that city, and of course it was raining when I was there. Typical SPb.

>>39624

Compared to Moscow, historical center is well preserved, and it is pretty large. City is "new" (1703) and was build literally on swamp, with almost no previous dwellings. Most of these buildings are newer, but they still pretty old.

>>39625

1, 2 - classical "well-style courtyard", a place inside house block with one or two entries, closed from outside. These types of courtyards are stereotypical feature of SPb. They often not so shiny and beautiful as main streets.

>>39626

Vosstaniya square (площадь Восстания, literally Uprising Square). It is named after February Revolution (1917), because that square was a place of numerous demonstrations, protests and such.

>>39627

Some other historical buildings on the Nevsky prospect ("main" street of SPb) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevsky_Prospect

>>39628

1, 2 - canals. There are plenty of them, we crossed 2 or 3 only in one km. Pretty beautiful view.

3. Some popular shop. Sadly, forgot it's name.

4. Gostiny Dvor - old historical building, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gostiny_Dvor
Wiki says that it is "one of the first shopping arcades in the world"

>>39629

1. Some church, probably Armenian. Forgot.

2. Catholic church. We've went inside and sit on benches, but I didn't take any photos. I'm not a religious person, but thought that it would be a bad taste, especially when everyone around are very quiet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St._Catherine_(Saint_Petersburg)
It is oldest catholic church in Russia. Pretty interesting place.

3. Kazan cathedral - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazan_Cathedral,_Saint_Petersburg

4. Water, again. Church at center was build on the place where emperor Alexander II was killed.

>>39630

1. Singer house (Singer as that company that made sewing machines), also "House of the Book". Famous book shop, pretty large and, of course, very historical. Had photos from inside but they all were bad, maybe because light.

2. View on Kazan cathedral from that house (top left - reflections of lamps).

3. Another historical church.

4. Water.

>>39631

Entrance to the Palace Square - center of SPb. Place of revolution and house of tsars.

>>39632

Also Palace Square. It is big, really.

>>39633

Now not the canal, but real river. It is famous Neva, main SPb river.

2 - Palace bridge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_Bridge

4 - Peter and Paul fortress in the distance. It was too far for us to walk there at that evening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_Paul_Fortress

>>39634

1, 2 - so called rostral columns, with ship-styled decoration.

4 - Saint Isaac cathedral - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Isaac%27s_Cathedral

It was too late to visit cathedral, but we could walk up to roof (you can visit museum and cathedral's roof). Bought tickets literally in two minutes until ticket office closed.

>>39635

View from that cathedral roof.

>>39636

1, 2, 3 - decoration of metro stations.

4 - Sennaya square, also famous SPb spot.

>>39637

And another day - just view on Neva near that rented flat. Couldn't find any good 4th photo, so it is the end.

>>39645
>I've heard of the Metro before. It's a pretty big and fancy place

It is not that big as Moscow one, but still pretty large. It also has problems with water (surprising), so some lines were flooded years ago. It is also pretty deep because bridges are moveable and everything goes under river.

>Cozy. I'm getting really distinct "Amsterdam" vibes from this place

Peter visited Netherlands and studied there for some time. He made city by European standards and surely was inspired by Amsterdam too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Embassy_of_Peter_the_Great

>Fren

Peter also depicted with mad face on almost every portrait or statue. Maybe he really had that face?

>>39652
>Since it was built on a swamp, did they put wooden poles in the ground like in venice?

Didn't see any but internet says so. There are thousands of wooden poles under many buildings.

Found these in the garden. Bunch if remained but they are small like the two smallest ones. Those btw I only picked because they just turned out from the soil as I moved the vegetation around them to make picture.
If I can identify them successfully and they are edible I'm gonna let them grow some before picking. If not, maybe I'll remove all, we don't need them to be there, especially if they're poisonous.
At first glance they resemble to the agarics one can buy in shops, I think those are agaricus campestris. Except those have darker lamellas or how those are called, the underside of the cap where the spores grow.

Colorless centipedes, straight out of a moult or even out of the eggs.

/myc/ - mycology
Let's identify mushrooms. Hopefully occasionally gonna post this stuff.
Mushrooms have several traits to identify them.
First the appearance. They consist of:
- cap
- hymenium is the underside of the cap where sores grow, can be gills, sponge, internal (eg. puffballs), etc.
- stalk (or stipe)
- annulus is a collar around the stipe, remains of a partial veil
- volva is like a boot or a sock at the base of the stipe, remains of a universal veil
The aforementioned veils are membranes which cover the gills (partial) or the whole mushroom (universal) at younger age.
There are other physical characteristics:
- spore color
- smell
- taste (well obviously don't eat what you couldn't identify, but still it's a trait)
- bruising, changing in color when touched, injured
Beside two more important factor that might help:
- habitat
- time of year

From the little XP I got from researching these two >>38799 >>40440 I know it is useful to remember species with close resemblance to each other, and ask X inedible/poisonous species has Y and Z characteristics, are these present on the one I want to identify?
Here's a publication that list similar pairs. It's in Hungarian, but next to the picture it gives the name in Latin, so perhaps could prove useful even for foreigner. The association which compiled this little pdf has a great online database of mushrooms with good description and great photos. However for the identification process it isn't convenient to use, so first other sources needed, then when the possibilities are narrowed down, only then it's useful for confirmation.

>>40508
Cont.

When identifying a mushroom a certain order is the most convenient to follow.
First, even before we would see a mushroom we are probably aware the current date more or less, so we could know to some extend what kinds of mushroom we can come across. Then the surroundings can tightening the circle of possibilities. Are we walking in a meadow, or among trees? Are those trees conifers, or deciduous? Damp or dry? Sunny or shaded?
And when we find a nice toadstool the most visible part will be the cap. And that can tell a lot without even looking below. The shape, the colour, the texture, the edge of the cap. Does it have those little white fluffs that so characteristic to certain species (among them the picrel fly agaric)? Those thingies aren't part of the cap, but the remnants of a universal veil - some mushrooms have spots which are really part of the coloration of the cap. Is the cap slimy? Dry? Silky? It all matters.

Next easily observable part is the stipe or stalk.
Again shape and size can give directions. Is it robust, or maybe flimsy? Thicker at the base? How about the color? White, red, brown, or something else? The texture is scaly like a snake's skin, or smooth, perhaps covered in hairs?
How about the remnants of veils? The annulus around the stalk like a ring or collar. It can take variety of looks, can be droopy, thin, some has considerable density. How high is it on the stem? Beware on some mushrooms with time they can disappear with age. They also can leave behind a light spore print, most of the time very hard to see, but can be significant when id. How about the remnants of the universal veil - we noted them when talked about the caps -, the volva at the base of the stipe. If you can't see it, that doesn't mean it isn't there...
So now we should remove specimen. Gently not to make some important traits disappear. It's better to remove it in full them cut the stipe so we can see what's going on below the fallen leaves or grass or maybe even the soil covering the base. Now we really can see if it has a volva or not.
There is a third type of veil, the cortina, it is the same place where the annulus should be and resembles to spider web, and it's strains between the edge of the cup and the stipe.
And a fourth veil is a variation of the universal veil, which basically a slime covering the whole mushrooms. I doubt I would pick one looks like that. Are those species even edible?
Anyway we should take a look at the base again after we removed from the soil, because the roots, called rhizomorphs, or more simply rhizomes, also a trait that can help id.
And again just like the cap, does it bruise? Poke it, cut it, and watch of discoloration.

Now that we picked the mushroom we can see easier under the cap, don't need to make us comfortable down in the dirt just to take a look. Hey maybe a mirror could be used, gonna make a note.
Hymenium could take a couple of forms, gills, sponge, teeth, internal (of the puffballs), gel, and some species' cap forms a cup and grow the spores on the inner surface of it.
Gills come in wide variety. Not just their spacing is important, but how they join to the stem, if at all. Sometimes they have to be cut in half to see exactly how they attach.
Quite curiously the delicious Chanterelles have false gills, ridged on the lower side of the cup and running on the stipe. A type of mushroom looks very similar to these species, it has true gills however.

Garden findings again. Raining all week and these started to cover a patch. They ain't big but numerous. The cap feels slimy, it left the mark on the paper towel. Now they stick to it.
Can't really find that fits the description, many are similar however, quite a few not just inedible but poisonous. Tomorrow gonna try again.

What's missing from the list of identification traits (good chance with others) is the growth habit.What's missing from the list of identification traits (good chance with others) is the growth habit. Three types:
- singles
- gregarious or troops
- clusters
Picrel found in garden illustrates the cluster type - yet to identify -, they grow out of one base. The gregarious also means growing in group but the stipes have their own origins and they stand a bit further apart, toadstools growin in fairy rings belong here (we call these witch circles, wiches came here to eat fly agaric to fly). Singles are self explanatory.

Meanwhile found an identification sheet. For those who want to document their findings.

Had my Xmas stroll. The weather was dull, and not good for photographing, and I went through those parts of the woods I usually go, but I wanted to bring back a couple of shots. Not much interesting.
Still found mushrooms, no idea what are they, back in November saw lot of these.
What's in that hole? We'll never know.

Passed through different micro-biomes with different combination of vegetation.
Then here's these ball thingy. I've no idea what tree produces that fruit. I see them here and there, but never bothered to look it ip. Since they look spiky, they remind me of chestnuts but they aren't. Cut one open to see what's inside.
On the ground there are oak and hornbeam leaves, and a third one I don't recognize. Probably that's our winner.

Was conflicted a little where to post these, but fit here the best.
The photos are from this article:
https://index.hu/nagykep/2019/11/01/festmenyszeru_szikes_alfoldi_taj_az_ev_hazai_dronfotoja/
They were made for a drone photo contest. Drones are hot topic on Index, a new law is inbound or perhaps is already enacted, they are getting heavily regulated, maybe gonna write a little about the suspected reasons later.
I'm gonna try to give context for the pics, but I can only write what the article provides, most only have the title.

#1. "Golden tree" - salt-affected soil on the Great Plains, around a drying river. The yellow area is due to the algae of the riverbed.
#2. "Tarn" - in Hungarian we call that type of lake "sea eye"
#3. "Buffalos" - in a buffalo reserve
#4. "Receding winter" - looks like reed on the shore of a lake, with protruding piers

#5. "Even on the back of the ice... " - from an idiom used to shrewd people who can live even on the back of the ice.
#6. "Lake with fractal pattern"
#7. "At the edge of the ice"
#8. "Surf - Bali"

#9. "Balaton"
#10. "En route III./Attracted by hills"
#11. ???
#12. "Fog barrier"

#13. "Waking city"
#14. "Family tree"
#15. "Road construction"
#16. "Worlds"

Exactly sixteen was published in the article. Neat.

Took a stroll today. "Stroll" was long enough maybe not the length, but in time for sure. I got tired.
These weeks we had shitty weather, above 0, with rain, the soil became soggy. Then snow came and sudden cold, they promised ~15C here for the nights and -3-5 for the days. It wasn't that cold however, was borderline melting. The snow insulated the earth anyway and the mud remained under the 10-20 cm of snow (depending on the wind). Which meant not just muscling through the snow but slipping in the mud as well.
Mostly I followed roads and tourist trails, but certain places large puddles with thin ice, and trickling water made me slalom around. At one place at length forestry trucks plowed the loose soil, engraving it with deep wheel tracks, which then gathered water. These were also treacherous since their thin ice were often covered by the snow. So there I was hiked among the trees and the thicket. That was actually nice.

Rose hip. Most had a bit of ice frozen on them.
Mistletoe.
Went through various landscapes.

Let's continue with my snowy IWO.
From these four pic maybe the last one is worth more interest, the rest is an illustration of what kind of landscape I strode through.
So the last pic was on the roadside, a boar turned over the leaf coverage of the ground. There were long lines in the snow all around where he rooted up whatever he looked for. I assume it searched for acorns below the oaks.