Saturday November 30, 2013

Anything we do that we know nothing about always takes a learning curve and time for experience. Vic spent a lot of energy and hard work felling and cutting three white oak trees only to find out they have something like black heart rot in the core. These types of logs cannot be used by Shiitake growers because the core rot competes with the Shiitake mycelium and compromises the purity of the mushrooms or so we found out after doing a lot of research and phone calls to our mentors Tim and Jane in Kentucky. I still may not have the information correct but we do know that we cannot use our white oak logs. Learning curve just got higher. How we view this is simply to cut our losses and hope the other logs produce a great amount of mushrooms for us. Whether or not this endeavor is successful, the experience and learning has been invaluable. We have branched out into educating ourselves about all things organic, sustainability, and small community markets. We went to McDonough's farmers market at Heritage Park and were delighted to meet so many enthusiastic and friendly people. You would think that at 63 years old I would have tried just about all things vegetable, however, I have become MORE of a veggie fan and bought some brussel sprout greens. These are the best greens my taste buds have ever experienced and I will definitely seek them out whenever I can. We also bought local honey, eggs and pumpkin/pecan salsa. The salsa also proved to be the best I have ever tasted.It is such a shame I have waited this long to frequent the local fresh markets. After this, going to the grocery store is a real let down. Here are some of the logs we can't use. Who knew? We do now.

It is Monday morning after our first two days of inoculating logs. Standing for 5 hours at a time for me was a little daunting and I fulling expected to wake up this morning and not be able to move, but gratefully I feel wonderful and I am stoked to get started on another batch today. Woohoo. Pics are of our "operation" in the garage. On another note: There has been so much weather related tragedy here in the USA and abroad in the Philippines. This morning my prayers are for all who suffer. I hope help gets to them quickly.