for working out on THF. After the last few weeks of rainy, snowy and freezing cold days, it looks like spring has finally decided to arrive here in upstate NY.
And what wonderful timing. Saturday morning was chilly. I know this because my 2007 Camry hit 150,000 miles as I was driving to the farm and the photo I took shows the temp as being 34 degrees.
I had stopped to pick up a box of coffee and morning yummies (got to feed the troops) while Ron headed directly to the farm. He was going to get the heaters, burn barrel and grill going. When I got there, he drove up to road to collect me and the rest of the food supplies. Then we got on with the business of final set up. I say final set up because we had being getting ready for Saturday since the previous weekend. There was a lot to do. We are still dealing the left behind trash from previous owner. The flooding we had last year pulled more of it out of the bushes. And the wind that hit this area played havoc with our rows of landscape cloth.
Ron and I took Thursday off and Jo joined us to tackle the biggest projects. It was cold, cloudy and unfortunately windy which made our job that much harder.
We still have some tweeting to do with the landscape cloth, but by the time we were done, it looked much better as did the rest of the farm. Fallen trees were cut down and chopped up, trash picked up and assorted things put away and into proper place.
Ron had taken Friday off too so he spent a few hours by himself puttering around on THF, getting the last minute things done.
It was 8:30 am and we were just about to say we were ready when I noticed that I had grabbed two boxes of plastic forks instead of spoons. As we had chili and soup for lunch, a fork was just not going to work. I headed to the store to correct this goof. By the time I got back, most of our crew was on site and Ron was well into the safely and work briefing. Then I discovered the next gone wrong thing. Just before I had to make the store run, I had put our foil wrapped sausage biscuits on the grill to warm up. Did not notice that Ron had the burners on high. Yeah, they were more than crispy. A few were still eatable but most of the biscuits were too far gone. I had to throw the left overs out when we got home. Which made me sad. But those were the only things that did not work out.
Turns out Ron’s use of social media was a good idea and he found a few more kooky people who were willing to drive a good distance to work in a tent for someone else while learning how to grow their own mushrooms. With 18 people plus Ron and me on site, it was a bit crowded and we struggled at first to get a good rhythm going
Ron and I gave a quick demo of each job and everyone jumped in to work. We made sure they traded jobs, wanting each of them to get a feel for all the steps this project entails. They really liked Ron’s bungee cord set up and the rolling stands we had to hold each log.
Doug and Jim took over one of Ron’s normal jobs which is hauling the finished logs across the stream and down to the end of our property. And then bringing down the next set of logs to work on. That freed Ron to answer questions and keep an eye on the whole set up. We had unexpected visitors that he spent about 30 minutes talking to. Neighbors from down the road who noticed all the cars and thought this was a good day to stop by and see what we were up to. Any of you who know my husband, you know he was delighted to talk with them.
Our second wave of workers arrived about 10 am and that turns out to be a good thing. If we again open this event to newbies, a schedule of arrival times might be part of the plan. Along with a dedicated grill master. Getting the food ready or keeping it available causes us no end of issues. We need to figure out how to have what we are offering ready for anyone to grab when they need a quick bite. We also struggled with our wax. If we let it get too hot, it tends to be very runny and harder to work with.
As the day went out, people had to leave. Some of them had an over 2 hour drive back home. But we soldiered on with Jesse, Lynne, Jim, Diane, Sym, Hans, Vicki, Brittany and her young son, Dallas. If that young man comes, I will have to lock up the donuts. He really liked them. I do wish he could have shared some of his energy with rest of us. We had a wonderful surprise when Shelly arrived later in the day. She thought she would not be able to make it but then just came anyway. She gave us a needed boost to finish off the logs we had waiting in the wings. And was a great help to Ron in the getting logs across the stream. We were all on our last legs.
At 4:30 pm, we were down to Ron, me, Shelly, Jesse, Brittany and Dallas and we were done for the day. Now the picking process began. This is my thing. I know if I sit down before getting things put away, I will regret it. So I just got started tossing things into boxes or a garbage bag. Jesse took Brittany and a load of stuff up to the road and loaded it into my car. Shelly helped us getting the last few things into the shed or wagon for the trip home. I was done and left Ron behind to finish up.
Such a relief to get home. Jo helped me unload the car and for the first time, I just left everything where it landed in our kitchen. When Ron got home, I warmed up a couple of hotdogs and we ate those with a beer and some chips. It had been a wonderful day and with the help of our volunteers, we got almost 300 logs drilled, inoculated, waxed and moved.
We did miss our facilitator in the person of Ron’s brother Don. He was not up to it this year and our work flow was just not the same without him. He has the knack of seeing who needs a quick break or pep talk and what is needed at each station before those working there do. And he was always happy to jump in where he was needed.
I am typing this while Ron and I are slowly getting ready to head out to THF today. We have a bag of spawn and some logs that are waiting for us.
Just think we get to do this again next year. Ron will be sending out the event details shortly. He will want to get your commitment for 2019 as soon as possible.