I am Volkhart, live in Franconia in Germany and would like to say hello to y’all.
Here is what brought me to this forum:
In my youth I used to sometimes go out into the forests and fields around our town with my parents to collect mushroooms which was something we all enjoyed. That mostly stopped when I graduated from school, joined the army for a few years and then went to university.
Then the nuclear desaster in Chernobyl practically ended wild mushroom collecting around here for a long time.
Only when cesium contamination in the fungi had decreased to acceptable levels did some people begin to go out looking for them again, and about 15 years ago, very occasionally, so did I.
By then a large part of former generations’ knowledge about mushrooms had been lost.
I also only knew what little I remembered of what I had learned from my folks a long time before, and they had by no means been experts, knowing only a few types of fungi. So I tried increasing my knowledge.
However, I found that to be rather difficult as there were hardly any people around in our region with sufficiently solid knowledge to safely learn from them. Books helped, but they are inadequate (except in case of some truly unique species) when it comes to determining whether a certain mushroom is edible or deadly. And while it may not always be a matter of life or death, actually there are cases where the exact species cannot be determined based on macroscopical properties alone, which is why microscopy is an important tool in mycology.
Fortunately, fairly recently the situation here has improved and there are now a few people around that one can learn from.
While I am still far from the level of expertise where I would really need a microscope to determine something I found I thought it would be nice to have the possibility to sometimes take a look. Also I have always found microscopy interesting.
So when in a German mycology forum I found an online store for mycology supplies, run by a renowned mycologist who is a member of that forum, I checked it out and found a really good deal which I could not resist. I am therefore now the proud owner of a brand new Swift SW380B microscope with which I have been playing around during the last two weeks.
So this is the story of how I got here. Which is longer than I had expected when I began to write - I hope it did not bore you.
Grüße aus Oberfranken/Greetings from Upper Franconia
Volkhart