We finally have a winner in THF raffle. Our tiny house has finally been used.

Kate was part of the fabulous team that helped us get the mushroom bolts from up north down to Augusta. It was Ron and me, brothers Don and John with nephew Jesse who drove up with a rented truck. Decided that making one trip with a large load would be easier on us and our Transit. We were meet by Josi, her son Ryan, sister Kate and her husband, Pete. Ryan, our log provider and his daughter Camryn were also there finishing up.

Excuse the sun spots but it is the best picture I got of our work crew.
We made quick work of loading up over 330 logs and then headed back to THF. It was a lovely drive along Route 12. Little traffic, good company and lots of sunshine. Snapped a quick photo of most of the crew before we got the second half of the job done.

John swept out the truck while Kate and Pete’s dog, Bernadette checked his work. Many hands make light work. We were done in about 30 minutes.

Of course, being one of Ron’s adventures, all could not possibly go smoothly. When all the logs were unloaded and stacked, and Kate used our tiny house, we loaded up to head home. And the truck got stuck. It was muddier than we thought it was and the truck was just not having it. Thank goodness Ron thought to ask Pete to hang around to make sure we got out. He came back in with his pickup, Jesse got behind the wheel of the truck and the rest of us searched the remaining junk piles for something, anything we could shove under the tires. I found a piece of plywood but Don, he saved us by finding two car mats. That, and the rest of us pushing did the trick. I must be getting used to all this. Never doubted for a minute that we would get out. Of course, I did think we might have to call on Dick’s tractor again. Hugh sigh of relief, hugs all around and we all headed home. Another wonderful day.
Kate, your prize will be waiting for you at THF mushroom inoculation party next Saturday. You must attend to claim it.
All others, while you won’t be getting a prize for coming on April 16 you will learn how you can grow your own Shiitake mushrooms, have some great food and great fun. Come on – if you have read even one of my posts, you know we always have fun at THF. And everyone should live through one of Ron’s adventures. I promise, it will only make you stronger.

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.

I was safely at work on the 31st while Ron dragged Jo and brother Don out to THF for another project. It was time to get our winter mushrooms to be set up in lean-to stacks. The winter variety does not need to be soaked for 24 hours in order to force the fruit. All I know is that I looks like they will be easier to harvest this way. Leaving them in crib stacks may take up less space, but you then have to take the stacks apart and get down in the dirt to get all your mushrooms. Besides we are not growing on a flat area and lean-to works best there too. And it will be easier to cover the logs once they start pinning.  Soggy mushrooms are not a good thing.
Ron, being Ron  had been pondering about a solution for about a year.  He had done of a lot of research on how to create the best lean-to, but wanted less work and expense involved. Had pretty much decided how he was going to get this done, but he never knows exactly how his plans are going to work   He just gets started and waits to see how things go. Fixing and jerry rigging things on the fly.  I don’t know if he watched much of the MacGyver TV show in the late 1980’s but I was a huge fan. Now that “mcgyvering” is an official verb, he just loves using it.  His solutions are never as dramatic as the stuff done on the show, but they are fun and work.

This was the final support system he came up with. His first attempt using just wire to hold the side beams together was not strong enough. Usually he does this kind of thing by himself or with me. I have learned exactly how to offer suggestions to him, though it has taken me years to develop the right technique. When Ron works with his brothers, things don’t always go as well. All three of them have their own ideas of how things could or should be done and they are so alike. It can get a bit testy at times. Working with just Jo goes pretty well for him too. She doesn’t offer suggestions, simply follows his lead. She might be the smartest of all of us.

I did have to question Ron though. My research showed the log ends actually resting on the ground. I wanted to know what was with the pallets. He had a good reason – slugs. A major bane of mushroom growers. Nobody wants to buy a slug chewed Shiitake. He is hoping that by keeping the logs up off the ground that will give him one more level of protection. It will mean he has to keep a closer watch on the moisture level of the logs. But he thinks it will be a more than even trade-off.

Ron must have told her to show him how she really feels. While Jo is a solid hard worker, you can tell that she is not thrilled. Can’t blame her.  A day of hauling boards, shifting logs and dealing with her Dad.  She would be much happier back at home, warm and dry and sitting in front of her laptop. Though they had spots of sunshine, it was a cold and rainy day with thunder sounding in the background.  Their hard work paid off, with 5 racks done with 3 more to go.  I can see a trip out to THF in my near future.

It poured rain here over the last two days. A welcome change to the dry weather we have been experiencing for most of the past few weeks. Though that meant we could not go rock picking; so sad that made me. Ron told me that he wanted to go out to THF after work today to check on possible flooding. We get lots of water out there in all sorts of odd places, but have not yet been able to figure out where it is coming from. I think we need to have someone come out there with their drone and a camera to fly over the place and see what they can find.
When we got out to the Farm we were surprised but pleased to see that the creek wasn’t flooded and more importantly that all those rocks we had so carefully picked and dumped into the gully, I guess you’d call it, they were still there. We were even more surprised to find more mushrooms.

We had come with a couple small paper bags just on the chance we found few that were ready for picking. There were more than a few. They were all over the place.

Ron and I had to move the logs around so we could get to them. And Ron was kept busy dispatching the slugs too. The problem is that every one of the mushrooms was soaked with rain. Not what you want for really good Shiitakes. This batch is going to be dehydrated.   We going to have to a plan for the future. While the dried ones are said to be great, people really want to buy the fresh ones.

We walked to the far end of THF to check on the Red Wine Cap mushrooms and were shocked to find them also flowering. All that rain. It just pushed everything over the edge. I am actually hoping for colder weather soon. That should put a stop to the mushrooms until next spring. When we will be ready for them, I hope.

Ron picked the two largest ones, these you simply pull right out of the bed. They are so pretty, the color is amazing. We carried them all back to the Transit and headed home. The paper bags themselves were soggy by the time we got there. We had Jo lay a beach towel out on a table so we could try and dry the mushrooms while I got dinner going. Didn’t really make much of a dent in the wet. Ron then had to figure how you actually cook Red Wine Caps. Apparently they don’t go well with garlic and butter. Who knew? He found recipe that we had all ingredients for and gave it a try. Fennel seeds, nutmeg, white wine and lemon juice. Jo said he used too much lemon. He was winging it again as the recipe called for 12 cups of mushrooms and he only had the two.
Then he cleaned and cut up the Shiitakes and I got them into our dehydrator. They say it should take 6-8 hours. But I am betting on just a bit longer. Come morning, we will see how they did. Thank goodness Ron is on a 10 year plan. That gives us lots of time to learn what we need to.

This spring at THF we set up 200 mushroom bolts; 100 spring and 100 winter. With care and luck we would have our first mushrooms in spring 2016. Being novices at all this, we believed the experts and settled in to wait. Imagine our surprise when last month Ron discovered a few early arrivals.

I was surprised at how lovely these shiitakes are.

And all of them so different.

Ron cleaned them off with a brush, reminder to all – never with water and checked them for assorted bugs. Then he sliced them up and tossed them into a pan with some of our minced garlic and lots of butter. About 15 minutes later he served them up to us. Sadly I have to say I still don’t like mushrooms. Jo, on the other hand could not eat them fast enough. That made me very happy.
For the next few weeks, we checked the logs again and were happy to see that no more mushrooms were out. Both of us tend to like it better when things go on accordingly to schedule.
We were away last weekend – story to follow – and it ended up being 5 days between farm visits. Ron headed out to THF on Tuesday after work just to check things. He keeps his boots in the Transit and grabbed Jo’s safari type hat to keep the bugs away. Good thing he had that as he came home with this –

He checked them over and we weighed them up

Jo told us that it poured rain on Saturday while we were away. The extra soaking must have triggered the “flush”. Ron got busy brushing and bug checking and then sautéed half of them. The rest I took to work to share with friends. Getting them hooked so they will be willing to actually buy them from us in a year or two.
Tonight we headed out again for more rocking picking in our soon to be garlic field. Sadly, no one else has showed us to help us. While Ron got the 4 wheeler turned around with its load of rocks, I headed out to check on the mushroom logs. And we had more. Not so much this time.
And I found a friend

We will have to come up with protection plan against the slimly slugs, deer and cute chipmunks.

Not being content with growing a single type of mushroom, Ron decided that he wanted to grow red wine cap mushrooms too. They of course are grown in a totally different method. And I thought getting the Shiitake logs set up was hard work. We had to create beds for them, 8 x 4 foot and get our hands on both wood chips and saw dust. Both of which also had to be hard wood. Pine would be too acidic.

First Ron had to find the right type of logs to use as the mushroom beds. More time spent on Craigslist and searching the web for info. Of course, he found a guy and made the deal. On May 13 he went to Sherburne NY to meet Wayne Law and pick up 42 Tamerack poles. Jo went with him and then the three of us unloaded the trailer when they got home. Blasted things were heavy. And prickly. Work gloves and long sleeve shirts for all.

Ryan, our mushroom bolt guy suggested Ron call Ballie Lumber Saw Mill in Boonville NY for the sawdust but they only sell by the pickup load. More than we needed, but they recommended Ron try another place. He gave them a call, but they don’t mill all the time. They had an order for hardwood in a couple of weeks and they would give Ron a call.

In the meantime, Ron started building the beds. Oh, how we could have used a chainsaw artist. We had to cut one log in half for each bed and then chisel off the ends enough so he had a pretty flat surface that he then used to connect the short logs to the longer ones. Large bolts were used to hold them all together. Predrilled, of course. On May 16th, while he was working out front, he heard a wood chipper going down the street. Jumped into his Transit and went to investigate. He came home with a promise that they would deliver the wood chips to our house when they were done. Free of charge too. That’s my guy. He is a wheeler dealer and loves to get other people involved in his projects. He has met and talked with so many people over the course of his gardening and now his farm.

Of course now we had to shovel the woodchips into garbage bags so we could get them out to Tiny House Farm (THF). We didn’t need all of it, but also did not want a huge pile sitting under the trees. I lost count of the number of bags we filled, but Ron finally decided we had enough. The rest of the woodchips I wheel barrowed out to the backyard garden, more mulch is always a good thing. Though it is not doing much for killing off the bind weed that is taking over back there. If only there was some wonderful use for it. I have googled it, but all they recommend is using it to tie up other plants, your cucumbers or tomatoes. Our entire neighborhood would have enough ties if I cut it all up and handed it out.

On May 22 we had 4 beds done and ready to take out to THF. We actually bit off more than we could chew that day. We had to load them onto the trailer and then when we got to Tiny House Farm we had to get them onto the wagon so we could use the 4 wheeler to haul them to their final resting place. In order to get this done, we had a couple of 2 x 4 boards, the chainsaw, tie down straps, and a wrench to take off the wagon side rails. This was in addition to the usual collection of tools and supplies – water, snacks, camera, helmet, gloves, boots, bug spray, and shovels.

It took some time and head scratching but we did it. Those beds were securely on the wagon and we were ready to go. Jo and I walked behind the 4 wheeler so we could keep an eye open for trouble. It was more than a bit nerve wracking. This was no easy smooth ride. I have decided that the route we take would make a great cross country run. The first part is relatively smooth, but then we head down to the stream and the place we enter from really could use some work. Getting out is a bit easier but then we have another gully to get over. We have been tossing rocks, which we have in abundance into that area to fill it in. Every big rain storm washes some out and we start again. For a few minutes it is an easier drive, just have to make sure the wagon doesn’t swing too far on one side and hit one our many trees. There would be no backing up on this run. The path took us down again and then we headed out to maple forest section of the property. We have not yet figured out where the water comes from that results in our muddy path but that was the worst part of our day. Not only was the mud very deep and slippery but there was a hill too. For a few minutes there, I was sure we were going to have to unload at least two of the beds in order for Ron to get the other up over the hill. No way were Jo and I going to push from behind. Ron gunned the engine and our lovely 4 wheeler lurched, jumped and clawed its way through the muck. Hallelujah. Deep breaths all around as the hardest part was over. A few more close calls regarding tree bashing but we got out to the other end of THF in one piece. Water break for us all and brief rest before we unstrapped the beds and got them set in place. The walk back was a welcome relief. Then we headed home. Another job well done.

On June 12th we did a second run but this time we only did two beds. So much easier. We knew what we were doing and with the small load, much less stress on the nerves. Now that the beds were ready, Ron had to get his hands on the saw dust. He was still waiting for the second company to call him back. After playing phone tag for a few more days, he decided to call Ballies back. Turns out we should have gone with them in the first place. $18 for a pickup load. For that low cost we could afford to get more than we needed. So, we put tarps in the trailer and he headed up there after work on June 18th. More shoveling into garbage bags. This stuff had to all go out to THF. No need for sawdust in the backyard.

Now we just had to get the last couple of beds made and hauled out. This project got me a seriously good workout.

Ron ordered the new mushroom spawn and when it arrived he headed out to get the beds set up. Brother Don and nephew Jesse came out to help and made the job go quickly. Now the only thing we have do it is keep them damp enough and wait for nature to take its course.

Ron is a recycler from way back. These crates were left behind by previous owner and they make a great measuring tool.