Volunteer day at THF

Mushrooms

After the wicked weather in early July, we had a lot of work and clean up to get done. I was still hoping we could find more of our missing logs and my friend Josi thought a log hunt sounded like good fun. Ron was more interested in getting the logs we still had moved to the south end of our farm for safety. Josi offered to come out last week end and help with the moving.
The plan originally was to get the last 75 logs inoculated with oyster spawn on Saturday July 8, but a family event took priority. Josi agreed to come out Sunday morning for this “quick” project.
It was just the four of us but we all knew what the drill and everything was already set up.  I just brought a few sausage biscuits for breakfast and lots of water.  Josi arrived at 8 am and we jumped right in.

Ron handled the grinding and Jo, Josi and I did the inoculation, waxing and stacking.  In just over 2 hours we were done.  But the day was not over.  Josi had not been across the stream yet to see the operation in progress.   She was about to get more involved than she planned.

First it was shiitake picking time.

Ron gave her a quick lesson on what they look for and he and Jo got started.  I took Josi on a walking tour to the south end to show her what we have going on and planned for that part of THF.  Our path was very over grown and still had pools of water in spots.  But no damage to any of our planted areas.

When we got back to the mushrooms, Ron was gone.  The bags they brought to hold the shiitakes had too many holes in them. He went back to the Transit it find some others.  Came back with one and his missing Leatherman tool and the extra knife.  We had not been able to find them in months.   Now that he had those, Josi was able to help harvest the mushrooms.

It is definitely a learning process.   You have to select the right size, one that is not squished and not too chewed up by critters.  Ron tends to pick them smaller than I would, but I don’t have his eye.  Jo, on the other hand, her picking is up to his standards.   It helps to have more hands as the logs need to be turned and then re-settled on the pallet.  God help you if you spin it too much and it lands in the mud.  Guess who did that?

Boots are a must out there.  We have some serious mud to work in.  If you are not careful you can easily lose your balance or your boots.

Picking all done and now it was time to soak the next set of logs.  Now that we have actual customers with a buying schedule we have to keep the shiitakes growing.  That means soaking logs for 24 hours at a time, a week before you need to pick.

While Ron and Jo had brought the cleaned up water pump back to the farm and run it for an hour to make sure all was well, the thing did not want to start.  I believe it was just annoyed with Ron.  After all, it usually runs for just 15 minutes at a time.

Once they got it running, I handed hose to Josi . She was going to re-fresh the water in our  soaking tanks.  We use the water for as many soaking sessions as we can.

This, of course is the biggest reason for all the mud we are dealing with.  We use lots of water in this project.  Good thing is that none of it goes to waste.  It all ends back in the ground to be used again.   Once all of the tanks were overflowing, it was time to get the logs in the water.

35 logs are divided between the 4 tanks, shoved down into the water and held there with cinder blocks.

Just after 1 pm, we were finally done.  Well, Josi’s part was done.  She got to head home to get  few things done for herself.  Jo, Ron and I headed home to started cleaning and bagging the shiitakes.  That added a few more hours to our day.

Another long day at THF. Made easier with the addition of hard worker, my friend Josi.  Volunteers and visitors are always welcome at Tiny House Farm, but be aware.  If we work a friend this hard, you can expect the same.  Boots and gloves suggested.

 

 

We’re still standing

Mushrooms

and so are our shiitake mushroom logs.

We left THF today with just over 4 pounds of beautiful looking shiitakes.  And Ron expects to pick about 15 more pounds over the next couple of days.  Not one of the logs we had on our A frames was lost.   There was some debris up against the set closest to the creek but the rest of area was just wet.  Seriously wet with lots of thick mud. But such a relief.  We are still in business.

Not all the news was good though.  We have lost some of the logs we prepped this year.   Cannot tell for sure just how many.  It was just over two months ago when we got them all set up on the pallets for what we thought was safe keeping.  I never did get around to taking photos to document just how many and where exactly they were.

The two end pallets were washed away from this spot. That is 50 logs right there.  And one of the totem experiments is gone too.  It just wasn’t strong enough to stand up the force of the water.

On the other side of the path, we are missing at least one more pallet.   Maybe more.    Such a waste of the work involved in getting the logs ready for shiitake growing.

By the time I took this pictures I had already had my adventure for the day.  The creek was down quite a bit but still running high and fast.  Ron and Jo headed across while I stopped to take their picture.  That turned out to be a mistake.   I have never liked walking through muddy water.  Not being able to see the rocks I am stepping on makes me uneasy. This time was worse and I took a step, lost my balance and down I went.  Jo headed back toward me as I struggled to get to my feet and I went down again.  Soaked through and through and with my waders full of water. I had also wacked my right knee pretty good.  Going to be adding to my bruise collection.  Ron had the nerve to be annoyed at me, as though I had been careless on purpose.   After all, he told me not to fall.  I staggered across the creek, up the bank and sat down on our stacked logs.  Jo helped me get the boots off.  They went off to check on the mushrooms while I gathered myself and took more pictures.

The power of water is just overwhelming.  I walked out to the south end of the farm to check on things.  The water had obviously been there, but most had drained off.  No damage to be found except for branches down and debris about the place.  I went back to the mushroom area and Ron suggested I go the other way to look for logs.  On the way I discovered that our great heavy plastic sled was also gone.  Someone is going to happy when they find that.

I found a pallet and some of our logs.  13 in total are now stacked on the pallet waiting for us to recover them.  Of course no way we can use the 4 wheeler and trailer to get them.  Too many trees and bushes to even try getting through.  It will be a hand carry job.    I really wanted to keep going down stream

looking for more logs,  but even our waders were not going to be enough to deal with the deeper, stronger water.   Ron meet up with me and that was that.  It was time to head home.  I really needed a shower and change of clothes.

Our disaster wasn’t as big a hit as we feared.  We have taken some losses but the tent held strong, we found all of our hand tools and most of the odds and ends we had stashed on a pallet, covered by a tarp were still there.  We even found the two metal chickens Ron bought.  Obviously we will have to make some changes.  Maybe GPS tracking for our logs. Or just a big chain to keep them from floating away.

If anyone out there living along Sconondoa creek finds logs with funny looking holes drilled in them – they belong to THF.  We would really appreciate it if you bring them back.

 

 

Body slammed by Mother Nature

Thoughts

though more than a bit damp.

Today was supposed to be another mushroom inoculation event.  A small one of course, with just 75 logs to get done and the three of us involved.   Brother in law Don was in as usual, depending on the weather.  Ron had ordered and received oyster mushroom spawn and we were going to try get the last of our logs set up with that.  I was more than ready to get them taken care of and out of the way.

But then on Friday the rain came and stayed.  And stayed.  And we had a tornado warning to boot.  Some serious damage down the road from us.  Once the storms cleared, Ron and Jo went out Friday night to check on things and came home soaked.  The creek was over their boots but they got across to the other side and back.   Plan was to head out to THF about 7 am on Saturday work for a few hours and then head home when the expected rain started.  Then we would go back on Sunday to finish it all up.

Ron checked the weather first thing this morning and we had a serious change in plans.  The rain was supposed to start at 9 am instead. No point in going out to get just 2 hours of work down. I started laundry and Ron puttered around.   Just waiting.  But the rain did not stop.  And the radar showed more on the way.  The day was a bust.  Jo and I went out to run some errands and came home again with the rain still coming down.

At 1 pm I got an alert on my phone, a flash flood warning.  That sent me down to talk to Ron.  We really needed to check on the farm. Still had quite a bit of equipment out there and our new tent.   Ron waffled but then gave to appease me.  It was pouring again and I put on a rain jacket, boots and hat in what turned out to be an extremely vain effort to stay dry.   We hit one patch of water streaming across the road which was not a good sign, but got to THF with no problem.

What we found there was a serious, crushing problem.  We had a lot of water in our work area.   The creek itself had not overflowed its banks yet, but water was coming from up the hill down to THF.  And there was nothing we could do about it.

And it got worse as we worked.  We pulled tools, the grill, pallets and assorted bins out of the water or its potential path.   And the water kept rising.  By the time we left I was soaked to the bone.  My boots were no where near tall enough to protect my legs and feet.

We headed home and once I changed into dry clothes, Ron sent me out with Jo to get ourselves some waders.  It was obvious that we were going to need them, not only for this emergency but for the others that might happen over the next 10 years or so.   One hopes that we have spent unnecessary funds on these boots and we don’t have to use them but this once.

At 5 pm the three of us loaded up and headed back for an update on THF’s condition.  I was driving my car which turned out to be an annoyance for Ron.  We hit one patch of water on the road after another.  Had to turn detour here and then turn around.   Finally he had me pull over and he drove from there.   After a series of turns we were finally on Solsville Augusta road and turned off it onto Route 26.  Then we hit serious water on the road.  We got through it but even Ron said we should have turned around.  The water was just pouring across the road and down the path to our farm.   We parked the car part way up a hill and started the walk back.

I think we would all have preferred to have snow again.

Ron wouldn’t let Jo and I follow him.   The water was too deep and current too strong. He came back up and we went down the way to the other path.

It was so much worse than we had expected. And hoped.

We didn’t dare open the tent to see how things were.   I had piled everything I could on top of our work tables and most the stuff was in plastic bins.  Tomorrow we will see just how bad it is.  We still have to get across the creek to check on our mushroom logs.  We could see some of them still upright on their frames, but have no way of knowing how they will handle this.   Our 2017 shiitake season could be over, unless they are as stubborn as Ron is.

By the time we left some of water had receded from the road and it was no longer pouring down our path.  So hoping that we get out there tomorrow morning and most of the water has moved down stream from us.   We have a lot of clean up ahead of us. Update to follow.

After action report

Learning Adventures

It was a one day event last Saturday, but the plan was months in the works.  There was so much involved that I was not able to to get any of our prep work saga down on paper.  Every time I sat down to write, Ron called with some other project we needed to get down right now.  This was a major learning experience.  We had signed up to attend the fest, but Ron had upped the ante by deciding that not only were we going to sell our shiitake mushrooms and mushroom bolts, but would offer sauteed shiitakes samples too.  This decision resulted in a lot more purchases; a hot water dispenser for hand washing, food service gloves, extra insurance, a cooking stove, pans, utensils, the list got longer every day.  And he had to run his plan by the Oneida County health department to get their OK. That involved phone calls, emails and more insurance.   Once he got that, the pressure was on.  Then he added to it by deciding we were also going to register for the Little Fall Garlic Festival in September and again offer samples.

It is not cheap, being a vendor at any event.  The list of things you have buy is long, even when you are not planning to offer food samples.  After last Saturday, I am even more convinced that a tent of some sort is a necessity.  There were a few vendors out at the Herb and Flower Fest that didn’t have one and I don’t see how they survived.  It was hot that day and the shade was most welcome.

We already found out that it works great in the rain.  We set the tent up on our back deck, trying it out for size and were able to work through it.  Just picked shiitakes wait for nothing when they need to be cleaned and sorted.  The week before the event brought an unwelcome realization.  We had already purchased a small frig to use as storage, but it is clear that it will not be big enough.

In order to fulfill Ron’s vision I had to come up with a burlap skirt for each of our three display tables and another table cover to give it color and pop.  My goal was to make something would be easily reusable.   And I have to say that I succeeded.  The burlap skirts I came up with can be folded up (well sort of) and stored for use.  Then pulled out and tossed over each of our 3 tables.  One side table was for the plants we would have for sale.   This needs a bit more effort and thought.  I am looking into growing unusual types of herbs.  More research needed.  The other would have our display shiitake bolt.  The table in front would be for  our signage, mushroom is quart and two quart sizes and samples.  This had to be the show stopper.   He spent a lot of time thinking about how he wanted things to look.  He got just what he wanted from Greg Potter, who has serious skills and is definitely capable of thinking outside the box.

The CCE allowed vendors to come in the afternoon before to start set up. That was a major help as Jo and Ron got the heavy lifting done.   Due to the windy conditions, we did not fully deploy the tent and Ron got the extra strapping out.  Before I got there, they had already seen another tent go flying.

The list of things we learned is a good long one.  I certainly learned that I need to be sure we have everything with us.  If we had been at an event that was further away, leaving behind our seed money could have been a real disaster.  More practice is needed for the shiitake sample process.  Ron wants to get Jo involved which would leave me free to handle our customers.   And we need to do something about a better money box.  Using an old cigar box, while it might bring back memories of your lemonade stand, it wasn’t very secure.  One misstep and it could have ended up on the ground with our cash flying all over the place.

The set up in the tent has to be tweaked to allow better movement and flow.  More of our mushroom bags needed to be prepped with our stamp and CNG sticker, our business cards too.  Ron needs a to have a straw.  He spent the entire time fully gloved for sample cooking and could not hold his water bottle.  Those of you in the know fully understand why he did not want to change gloves.  They are hard enough to get on it good conditions.  When your hands are damp, forget it.  And we learned that having boiling hot water in our hand washer container was not a good thing.   It kept the water too hot to use all day long. Neither one of us thought about adding one of our jugs of water to it.  I was able to get my tea all day though.  So not a totally bad thing.

The three things we really need to bring next time is more logs, more shiitakes and something for more shade.  And we need practice.  Lots and lots of practice.

Knowing Ron, he has plans.  So look for Tiny House Farm Augusta NY to be at more events.  Just not this year, expect for The Mohawk Valley Garlic & Herb Festival in September.

CCE Herb and Flower Festival

Learning Adventures

held on June 17, 2017 was our first vendor event, and we were quite nervous. The Cornell Cooperative Extension holds this event every year and it is always well attended.  We had been to numerous craft shows, garlic fests and other festivals over the years but had never dreamed we would be one of those hopeful few stationed in their tent, waiting for customers.

Our day started early as Ron planned for us to arrive on site at 6 am.  Didn’t quite make that goal.  It look us longer than expected to load everything into the trailer and then head out.  We had to stop along the way to get more ice.  Our mushrooms had to be kept cool during the day and the more ice, the better.

They had allowed set up the day before and Ron and Jo had taken advantage by getting the tables and tent setup.  We were among the first to arrive on Saturday, but could see that most tents were already set up.  Unloading came first, the best fun.  I had bought lots of plastic bins to sort and organize different groupings.  The table covers and displays, cooking, our THF shirts, sample serving stuff, our paperwork, and of course, Ron’s favorite – shit happens bin.   That had duck tape, scissors, note cards, clips, and anything else we could think of that just might have been needed.

We got the tent sides up and set up the tables and started organizing everything.  Right away we could see that it was to be tight working conditions.    No more than two people could really be in the tent at one time.  This was going to be an issue later on.

Our hopefully eye catching front table ready to go.   Mushrooms will be sold in one or two quart amounts.  We are so not ready to get involved in selling by weight.  That involves a special and expensive scale and lots of paperwork.  My head hurts just thinking about it.

On the right of the tent, I had lavender, ginseng and calendula for sale.  This was a side effort but one that made sure we fit into the “herb and flower” part of the event.  Our first attempt at growing plants for sale.  Time will tell how well they do.

Once we were fully set up, I started the final steps of getting my bows onto the logs.  Hot glue is not the easiest thing to shove a piece of wire through.  I ended up asking Ron for help.  As he got to sit down again, he was in his element.   I wish I had remembered to bring a large needle, but then thought of using one of our large skewers.  That worked a treat and Ron had the bows ready to go in short order.

Everything was ready and we all took a deep breath.  Off to take advantage of the coffee, juice and donuts for the vendors and change into our Tiny House Farm T shirts.  Then disaster.

I could not find our jar of cash.  The quarters and one dollar bills I had set aside to bring as our seed money.  After searching all the bins in and around our site, I grabbed the car keys and headed  home.  Just over a 20 minute dash each way and I was back with cash and we were ready to go.   Already people  were at our tent and Ron was giving them his spiel.  I just needed to get him to stop talking and start cooking the mushrooms.

Once he finally got going, we hit our second stumble.  The plan was to use garlic scape pesto in a pastry bag and pipe out a small amount on top of the shiitakes.  The pesto was too chunky for our pasty tip.  I had to scramble to get the tip off and use one of our toothpicks to get some pesto on each serving.  Then a dash of Sirarcha sauce on top.  We served this in bamboo leaf boats.  And they almost overshadowed the shiitakes.  Everyone loved those things.   Foolishly I never got a shot of our plate of samples.  Too much going on.  A few hours in and I had given up on the pesto.  We just offered plain shiitakes.  They were hit enough.

Brother in law Don was a surprise part of our work crew.  He arrived about an hour after start time. Next year, I have to remind him to tell the CCE staff that he is a member of our team so he gets in free.   Don is always a delight to have around and he knows as much about our shiitake process as Ron does.  A good salesman to have on our side.

Ron sliced mushrooms, hit the frying pan with olive oil and then butter and kept sautéing and talking.  The man never shut up, but everyone just ate it up.  He was obviously born to this role.  I offered the samples and gave my lower key version of our sales pitch.  Our mushroom bolts quickly had sold tags on them.   Annoyed at myself for not getting the perfect shot of a row of sold logs sitting just outside our tent.    Just too busy dealing with our customers.

Jo and Don were out of the tent most of the day and they both paid the price.  Two things on our list for next year – sunscreen and something to give us more shade.  Jo chatted with the ladies next door but kept an eye on me.  She made change and handed me bags as I headed for the mushrooms in our coolers.  We sold mostly quart size bags.   So we are thinking about ways to organize them better for next year.  And we are certainly planning to be a repeat vendor.

By 1:30 pm we were totally sold out of both bolts and mushrooms.  We even had a list of people Ron was going to contact about getting bolts the following weekend.  We spent the next two hours talking with people who would have bought mushrooms, if only we had them.  Ron was so in his element.  There is quite a bit of a teacher in him.

Exhausted is the only word for how we felt at 3:30 pm.  Both mentally and physically.  I take my hat off to anyone who does a weekend event.

I have to give a serious  shout out to Greg Potter.  He created the rack for holding our mushroom bolts, the display stand for our shiitakes and the stand for Ron’s display bolt.  They were simple and elegant and more than did the job for us. Check out Greg Potter’s Woodcraft for other examples of the amazing work Greg does.

It was an amazing experience.  One that we are already looking forward to in 2018.  We did not have high expectations for this event, after all it was out first and we were selling what some who call an unusual product.  As Jo says, we were gobsmacked at just how well we did do.  Ron might have actually had a good idea, after all.  Just don’t tell him I said so.

 

 

 

Mother Earth News Fair Burlington VT

Learning Adventures

Ron is totally into the firsts. So when we started planning our annual trip to the MEN Fair in September, he was delighted to find out that Vermont was going to have their first event this year. We do love trips to Vermont so we were in. Luckily we have the days to take off from work and no conflict with THF plans.

The only issue we ran into was the start time on Saturday morning.  Being old fogies, there was no way we could get up early enough in Sherrill to make the trip to Burlington are arrive by 9:30 am and be in any shape for the upcoming day.  About a 5 hour drive, factoring in stops we would have to be up and out the door before 4 am.   That is our normal wake up time.  So we decided to splurge and take Friday off as travel day and spend the night in local hotel.

This gave me the chance to insist on a stop at Vermont Country Store and Ron decided to throw in visits to a couple of places that make tiny houses.  Even though we do have an actual “tiny house” out on the farm, it is not the one Ron had planned on.  He wants a real house, one that HE can stay in.  After some research on the internet he found a company that looked interesting.  A few emails later and he had an invitation to visit.  They also recommended another place just down the road from then.

Friday we left the house at 6 am, which was late for one of our traveling days.  Rainy morning but not too much traffic on the NYS Thruway.  Stopped for our usual quick  road trip breakfast at McDonalds and hit our first bump in the road.  We lost about 45 minutes waiting there.  Annoying but this was not our usual trip and we had no hard schedule to follow.

I do like driving with a GPS and it brought us right to the address for Tiny House Crafters in Londonderry, VT.  It is a good thing that Kate advised Ron that they have a small space and not to be put off by their lack of big work buildings.  We could tell it was the right place by the two tiny houses in the front yard.   Anderson and Bob were busy working on their current project but they were happy to stop and spend some time talking with us.  Kate joined us and Ron jumped right in with his list of questions.  They were a terrific group of people and I could see that they were delighted that Ron was asking “real” questions and already had some knowledge.   Anderson went back to work and Kate and Bob gave us a tour of the house they are working on for a traveling musician.  It was amazing.  Annoyed at myself as we were 10 minutes down the road before I realized I had not taken an photos.   But you can see the quality of the work they do by checking out their website.

Then we headed to Jamaica Cottage Shop in South Londonderry about 10 minutes away.  This place was huge.  They specialize in building sheds of all shapes and sizes, but have now stated morphing them into tiny houses.  Shannon was very helpful and sent us on a tour of the two houses they had on site and the number and variety of buildings they had was mind blowing.  We came away with some good ideas for Ron’s future tiny house.

We did stop at the Vermont Country Store and spent about 30 minutes there  Always a fun place to spend some time.  An we took advantage of their picnic tables to eat our lunch.

Then we headed to Burlington and our hotel for the weekend.  Our biggest problem that night was finding a place to eat.  We ended up at the Blue Bird Barbecue just a few miles down the road.  A nice place, with good music, great food and staff.  If we ever are up that way again, we stop there again.

The first workshop at the Mother Earth News Fair did not start until 9:30 am.  So late in the day for us.  Don’t they know they could squeeze a few more speakers or workshops in if they started them at 7 am?

We were one of the first in line on Saturday morning.  Pretty quickly the line grew.  Ron noticed that very few of us were on our phones.  Everyone was talking with the people standing around them.   Where are you from, what brings you here, what do you do and what are you hoping to do, all of these questions made for great conversation.

And how very cool.  MEN posted a photo of people standing in line and there is Ron, in the teal shirt and hat.  I had not bothered to bring my camera thinking I would take any photos with my phone.  But I really didn’t.  Really just too busy going to workshops and talking with people.

Ron was determined to get a shot of me wearing our Tiny House Farm T shirt in front of the best Mother Earth News Fair sign he could find.  We had to wait for the last workshop to finish and the speaker to get packed up.  Then we dodged around the fair staff and got the shot.

On Sunday, we were again among the first in line.  It was hot there, but the breeze kept if from being unbearable.  All of the workshops were held inside which helped with the heat, but not the noise.  The layout made everything just too close.

Ron seems to have a knack for finding former military to talk to.  Everywhere we go, he finds one or two guys who have also served.  There is a connection there, and they have it.

The last workshop ended at 4:30 and as we had already cleared out of the hotel, we pointed the wagon north and headed home.   The plan was to stop along the way for dinner, but the GPS sent us home via NY Route 8.  There was lots of beautiful trees, water and rocks, but the only restaurants we saw were either packed or closed.  So we just kept driving.  Such a relief to pull into our driveway.  We hugged Jo, unloaded everything, grabbed something eat and headed to sleep.

We had a long weekend, but it was great fun and as usual we learned a lot.  I went to sessions on having chickens, making sourdough bread, fermenting veggies, being a homestead medic, preserving veggies, and several on using herbs.  Ron focused more on organic growing, small farms and  the headline speakers.

We have already started saving up for our trip to the Seven Springs Fair in September.