A lovely spring day.  Perfect for spending a few hours out at THF getting ready for our 3rd annual mushroom inoculation.  Jo, lucky girl, had the weekend off and was able to come with us.  Knowing our daughter well, we stopped at our favorite diner for breakfast before heading out.

Sadly, the biggest job we had today was to take down and remove our work tent.  It had served us well last year, but the unexpected snow storm last month killed it dead.

As you can see, there is no way we could get any use of it in its current condition. First we cleared it out of all the tools, chairs and tables we had stored there.

Then we pulled off the top.

So amazing that the weight of the snow did so much damage.  Not only bent the support beams but crunched them too.  I had really hoped we would be able to reuse it in some way.  Will have to given it some serious thought.  We did savage the bungie cords and most of the poles.  The sides and cover can be used as tarps, but I am determined to figure something out.

Ron did his usual and searched the web for a stronger tent.  One that would hold up to the snow.  Though of course, you can bet next winter he will be getting out to the farm no matter what the weather.  Just to be sure.

So he found one from a company in Canada.  A bit more costly than we had hoped, but we do need the strength.   He placed the order and then waited, and waited some more.  Finally he called them.  After all we do have a timeline.  Everything needs to be set up and ready by April 14.  We have a lot of work to get done the next day and need a tent in order to pull it off.   Apparently the company was having trouble with their email.  So he waited again.  And then called again.  Finally they confirmed the tent would be shipped and delivered this week.  Ron got a call from the shipping company who confirmed sometime this week as delivery date.

So we got the tent down and stacked all the pieces out of the way.  Then we moved on to the next task.  Ron wanted to sort the new logs we had.  Pulling out the ones that were just a bit too big for one person to handle. Those will be used for another type of mushroom that will be “static” and not need soaking.  The sugar maples were stacked in another pile.  Ron has plans for those too.  And we have the “pretties” pile.  Those logs that are small enough for someone to easily carry around and look their best.   Ron is hoping to sell those to people looking to grow their own shiitakes.  And  we have the stack of what we think are quaking aspen.  Which will also be another type of mushrooms.

Normally these would be neat stacks of 25, but nature does not always cooperate.   We have about 150 logs stacked down near our soon to be work area, ready to go.

Now that the logs were sorted, it was time to tackle Ron’s whimsies.  He wants to have fun and silly things scattered around THF.  Things that will bring a smile to any visitor’s lips.

I can see this being  a part of his plans for the next few years.  I am just hoping he gets most of this stuff a garage sales or in someone else’s throw away pile.

We are going to be busy this week, getting ready for this weekend.  Fingers are crossed that the current weather prediction holds true. 10 percent change of rain on Saturday and temp in the 60’s.  I can live with that  Thing is, Ron thinks he is coming down with a cold.  So not good.  He is a big old baby when he is sick.  Anyone have a magic cure?

Log jam, that is.

It is a good thing that we pushed out mushroom inoculation back two weeks.  We still have a good foot of snow out on THF.  More in some spots. I found a few while walking down our path to the road.

Our plan for last Saturday was to wait out the rain and then head to the farm to see if we could get a path of sorts laid in for log delivery on Sunday.  Jo had the weekend off so we pulled on the boots, warm socks and work clothes and were on our way.  With 4 wheeler of course.

Ron’s idea was to run the 4 wheeler up and down the path, battering down the snow.  After he took a few runs at it, he handed it over to Jo.

I had the idea of filling our black sled with a few logs and dragging it behind. Hoping that it would help compact the snow.   We tossed in 4 logs but really should have used more.  It was not heavy enough to make much of an impact.   We lost count of the numbers of times Jo went back and forth, but she did a good job at getting some serious ruts dug out of the snow.  I do have to tell you that it is not the easiest thing to walk in those ruts.  You tend to knock your boots together or lose your balance as you struggle to stay in line.

Finally Ron took over again this time heading toward the road, across our field.  We needed a solid path to get the logs actually to our work area.  Slogging through the snow was not going to make our work any easier.

Obviously his plan to have a straight line from point a to point b did not quite work.  The deep snow was no respecter of a plan.  It was fun though a bit unnerving to watch him as he zipped back and forth.

Then his phone rang and it was Peter telling him that the next load of logs were ready to go.  Ron told him we would need an hour to get ready.   Then he sent me and Jo home to get the air compressor.  One of the tires on our wagon was going flat and needed air in order to do the best work.   He didn’t bother to tell him that the blasted compressor would fill up and then immediately proceed to bleed the air back out.  By the time we got back to the farm, there was very little left.  Just enough to make a small difference.

Peter arrived in his truck with a fully loaded trailer and two friends.  The first load into the wagon was light, Ron not being sure how much the wagon would take.  All went well and the second load was doubled.

Jo and I waited at the tree line and unloaded and stacked the logs into our usual grouping of 25.   Peter and his friends waited for Ron and filled, then refilled the wagon.  With all those helpers we were done in just over an hour.  199 more logs at THF.

We are almost in business.  Just over two weeks to finalize all the plans, figure out a way to jerry rig a repair to our work tent, get all the food bought, confirm we have all the needed supplies, bake some yummy cookies and con brother in law Don into agreeing to pick up donut holes on the day.   The actual list of things to get done by April 15 is much longer.  I am trying not spend too much time worrying about that.

Remember all the final details can be found on our Tiny House Farm Augusta NY FB page.

Last Saturday was not the best day for it, but Ron had already made arrangements for Peter and Christine to drop off the first load of mushroom bolts. As I said before, the man would not let a little thing like sub freezing temps get in his way. If is was over 80 outside, that would be different.
As the plan was to meet them at THF at 9 am, so of course, we left the house two hours earlier.  Dress code was warm clothes and layers with tall boots. Just so you know, I consider Smartwool socks a necessity of life. Their long johns are pretty good too. Ron bought those for me several years ago. To use when we were out shoveling snow. Never imagined I would be needing them on our own farm. Before the logs arrived, we have a few things to get ready. The 4 wheeler and wagon tires needed air added. We had to move some of the pallets down to the tent area and Ron wanted to get the burn barrel going.  Everything got done quickly and we waiting for 9 am to get here. Thank goodness, they arrived early.
With the ground frozen solid, Christine was able to drive their pickup in with trailer attached. Ron and I disconnected it, then Peter helped us unload the back of the truck and they headed off.

The small trailer was hooked up to the 4 wheeler and we loaded it full of logs and Ron drove it down to our soon to be work area.  There we sorted and stacked them onto our pallets in groups of 25.  Easier to keep track of that way, with 400 logs to process.

Ron had us pile the sugar maple logs separately.  He is planning to try growing lion’s mane mushrooms this year.    Apparently you grow them on logs just the like shiitakes.  But that is all on him.  As Jo likes to tell me, I am not mushroom people.  Log hauler, that is me.

Once we finished unloading the logs, we headed off to Peter and Christine’s place.  They have a few more logs waiting for us, and we wanted to get them out to THF.  As it happens, Peter was having his own adventure.  He had to rebuild the carburetor on his lawn tractor before he could use it to move the logs.   We loaded them onto the trailer and headed back to THF.  By now the wind had really picked up and we were feeling the cold even more.  While we had been working,  we were warm enough.  Now it was time to go home.

We left behind Ron’s chickens to enjoy the cold.  Brother in law Don was the one who created the coop for them. He really has a great imagination.

These guys should do well on THF. I do have to wonder how we will handle real ones running around the property in a few years. But that again will be on Ron’s shoulders. I will just use their lovely fresh eggs to bake cookies.

October 21st and 22nd were rainy days. Our area got over an inch of the stuff and then it was very windy. On Sunday we were finally about to get the last couple of steps done with our garlic planting.   As we packed up and headed out, Jo spotted this.

A huge tree down on the other side of our creek. At the base it was at least 24 inches in diameter. After the first what the heck, I could see the wheels start turning in Ron’s head. He had already told me that he was planning to try growing other types of mushrooms. He had already done a lot of research and decided that he would try oyster mushrooms and grow them in totem fashion. You need a freshly cut log and that is what Ron now had.
Now we just needed to figure out how to get this particular log cut into chunks we could handle.

On October 29th we finally went out with chainsaw in hand to tackle it. Now that it is fall, we cannot get the early starts we are used to. We now have to wait for the sun to come up and the temps to rise. But we lose so much time. Getting out there after noon means “half the day’s wasted”. Of course Ron tends to say that when it is 7 am and we are not up and heading out the door already.

The first thing we had to do was figure how just how this was going to work. The tree was down, but caught on two other trees. In order to cut it into the needed chunks, we needed to get it safely onto the ground. Ron had his thoughts but I had my own. Luckily he listened to me and decided to start from the lower end. First we had to cut down lots of little trees and pull others that had already fallen down out of the way. They were tripping and snagging hazards that had to be dealt with.

Ron got busy with the chainsaw and soon the tree was down. Unfortunately a good bit of it was not usable as the bark had been pulled off during the fall. We had to look each log over carefully and then get out the measuring tape to be sure we got a 4 foot section.
Once the final cuts were made, Jo and I got to work.

We decided the best way to get them up to our wagon, was to flip them end over end. This was easier on the two of us and worked quite well.  Gravity being our solid friend. Still, it was hard work and we burned off lots of calories.

I really need to talk to Fitbit.  Why don’t they have chopping down trees and hauling logs listed on their workout options?

I got something out of this for me too.  A wood chopping stump.  The one we had been using for the past few years has rotted into a pile of wood chips. Now we just have to get this home and into our backyard.  Thank goodness for our trailer and 4 wheeler.  Otherwise, Jo would be in charge of rolling this up to the car.

We have five logs ready for us to cut into slices and then re-stack making a mushroom spawn sandwich.  That will be a story of its own.

We didn’t cut the entire tree down, leaving about a five foot length behind.  You can just see it behind all the brush and trees.  It was too dicey to try and cut it down.  There is a gully right behind those broken stumps.  And lots of small downed trees.  Not the safest place to be wielding a chainsaw.

 
I was a bit worried about what was going to happen next.  Thinking that the whole root ball would swing back and then drop into our creek.

The following week, we were delighted to see that it had in fact swung back upright. Now Ron is trying to decide what he wants to do with it. Maybe a bird house on it? More ideas are swimming around in his head. He is very much into reusing what we have. Especially when we have to work hard for it.

Before we got started hauling mulch last Saturday, we went over to pull the soaking logs out of the tanks. Then we pulled back the plastic sheet we used to protect a set of previously soaked logs and discovered

Ron really has to work on his timing.

This is his defense every time he comes home with another machine or gadget.  He was innocently walking through the aisles of the hardware store, under strict orders to just be looking this month as we have a budget to stick to. When suddenly this box jumped into his shopping cart.  He put it back on the shelf but every time he turned his back, there it was again, back in his cart.  He got talking with the lady behind him in the check out line and didn’t notice what he was paying for.  And suddenly he is home and stuck with whatever he just bought.
Now he has to come up with a solid justification so I don’t start to cry.

The air compressor, well he needs that for our shiitakes.  Yeah, right.  He has wanted one since we were at the family reunion 3 years ago and he  stood in the driveway watching one being used to re-fill a flat tire.  But his story is that this compressor will make it easier to clean the mushrooms.  And I am forced admit that he has a point.  The dirt and bugs can be troublesome.  The gills tend to hold them tightly.  Washing them off is a big no-no and using a brush can be time consuming too.    Of course he could not use a run of the mill compressor.  It has to be oil free so he can stay on the good side of the organic people.

I haven’t told you yet about his soil sifter purchase.  Having spent days and days tilling and picking up rocks last year before we planted our garlic at THF, Ron decided he needed to find a better way.  Huge plans for expansion next year.  Good God, that means this fall.  Anyway he spent a good deal of the winter searching on line for a rock sifter. Personally I would love a rock sifter, as long as it not only removes the rocks from the ground but takes them right across the creek and dumps them in the most needed spot. Maybe if I rigged a conveyor belt to it? God help me, Ron is rubbing off on me.
Making a long story short, he found the right contraption. After waiting to see if he could find a deal, he finally ordered in late Feb. Then the fun started. There was this delay and that delay. And it would be no speed delivery due to the weight. I was getting annoyed because our credit card had already been hit and I really did not want to pay the bill without having sifter on site.
Finally middle of April and we came home to a huge box sitting by front door. Still not sure just how Jo got that thing into the house.  The two of them spent several hours putting it together and getting it running.  Of course, it did not go smoothly, but they figured it out.  Now we just need to get it off my front porch and out to the garlic patch and see what it can do.

And of course he had to buy a water pump.  That was the final piece to his water tank purchase.

We discovered pretty quickly that we were just not physically up to the job of hauling the needed water for not only our fruit trees but for soaking the mushroom logs. While we would have built some serious muscles in the process, I believe it would have done all of us in before we saw the benefit. The right tool for the job can make it all better. Expect for my budget of course.  With the pump and hose system we could now fill the water tank in minutes.  All we have to do now if figure out exactly where we are going to draw the water from our little year round spring.  There are a couple of already made pools but they are not really deep enough.   I foresee more digging and rock shifting in my future.  My man really does not know how turn his brain off.  The ideas keep pouring out, one after another.  My job as is to reign him in as best I can.  It is a fine line between keeping him sane and me not crazy.