It is the beginning of our 2016 mushroom season. Last year, as we knew just enough to be dangerous, we managed to get our 200 bolts hauled home and stacked, drilled, inoculated, waxed, and stacked again with just the five of us doing the work. It is probably a good thing that we did not know just how much work it was going to be. We might not have even started the process. Took us over two and half days. I was only able to help for a few hours each day. Work, you know. Then we had to load all the bolts up and get them over to THF. All that work paid off early with some great Shiitake mushrooms. This year we are going to be doing 350 logs and are smart enough to realize that we need a few more hands involved.

Over the past 5 years, I have tried to persuade, coax, cajole, or simply brainwash friends into helping me pull down the wallpaper in our hallway. Even with bribes of drink and good food, I was not able to convince even one person. But this will be different. This is not a run of the mill boring, everyday task. This is something new and different.

Ron has received confirmation on delivery date of our mushroom spawn and we are finalizing date of log pick up. So we are shooting for April 16 as our inoculation date. We are looking for volunteers to come and learn the process by helping us out. Our volunteers will not only learn the process of inoculation but be offered Shiitakes when we start harvesting later this year. We are not planning to start selling them until 2017 but we should have quite a few to share this year.

As usual, these 3 Delaneys will be out at THF bright and early Saturday morning doing final set up for the day. Well, after the sun is up that is. While we did all the work last year in our garage, we ended up doubling our effort. Not only did we have to bring the logs to our house, we then had to get them out to the farm. This time we are going to the work where the mushrooms will then grow. We will have work stations for each task. Drilling, inoculating, waxing and stacking. With tents, a generator, work gloves for all, an ATV for possible hauling duties, and hopefully lots of laughter. Come for a couple of hours, come for half the day, come for the whole day.

There will be lots of good food; breakfast of sausage biscuits and muffins and lunch with snacks too. Coffee and hot water for tea.

If enough people show up, one of you will finally be the first person to use our lovely outhouse. Don’t worry, we have a heater for it now so no risk of a cold tush. I will be doing one of my most fun things in preparation for the day. Baking lots of cookies to share; including fan favorite soft molasses. We promise, all the tools will be out of the way.
We are hoping for a good sized crew to show up on the 16th, but we do have to ask that small children not come. This is a farm project and we will be working with tools and there will be lot of people milling about the place. We have a stream, lots of rocks, and still way to much garbage about the place. Including glass and metal.

We got about 5 inches of snow last night. So hoping that this is a one time thing and spring will decide to stick around. We can work in the heat, in the rain, and kind of in wind. But not in the blowing snow.
So plug the address of THF into your GPS – 2242 Rt 26 Oriskany Falls NY and meet us there on Saturday, April 16 starting at 9 am. If you cannot come then, we will probably still be working on Sunday.