We are grateful that we’ve arrived in a new year and we hope it is a better year for us and for all of you!
Our New Years tradition is to look back over everything we accomplished the year before and then make some goals and plans for the new year. Every year when we review, there are things that we planned to do that we didn’t get to or even decided not to do after all. And every year we are amazed by all the things we did do, many of which we hadn’t planned on doing! Most importantly this year, we are thankful for everyone who continues to support us and buy our mushrooms. Without you, we wouldn’t have this farm anymore. Especially after this year! 2021 goal: keep providing tasty mushrooms and mushroom products to all of you!
So, what have we been up to for the last month? A few things of course!
First, work continues with the new fruiting chamber and pack shed – but VERY slowly. We’re hoping we’ll have a burst of energy for the fruiting chamber soon, but right now we’re more focused on getting it a bit warmer in the pack shed. First step: getting a heater installed.
First, Jeremy installed some framing up in the pack shed rafters:
Then we settled the heater on the forks of the skidsteer and very, very carefully maneuvered it up into place, while managing not to run into the garage door track, or garage door, or any of the tables.
Jeremy spent a while up in the rafters attaching the heater to the framing:
Voila! We have a heater installed!
Unfortunately, there was one casualty. We had the door propped open for air and sort of ran the skidsteer against it, bending it horribly and ripping it off the hinges. Oops!!
Jeremy re-installed the door for a brief bit and then we picked up a recycled door from a builder’s outlet. The new door opens in a much better way so it was a win-win situation in the end! Back to the heater, Jeremy spent more days installing vents and piping and he’s now working on electrical. Soon we’ll have someone out to connect the gas and then we’ll finally have some heat!
We came to a decision a few weeks ago about fourth year logs. Fourth year logs were inoculated 3 years ago and have been force-fruited for two years. When we force fruit them a third year, that’s their fourth year (based on how we count things here).
Fourth-year logs still produce mushrooms, but not as many as second and third year logs. In fact, we decided, it’s not worth the time and energy we spend moving them around for the amount of mushrooms we get. So we moved all the fourth year logs out of the shade structure and we are going to sell them!
They are $5 a piece. Each log is about 4 foot long and varies in diameter from 4 to 8 inches. They are available any time for pick-up from our farm. There are plenty, as you can see below, so no worries about waiting till the spring to pick some up.
We can’t make any guarantees about how many mushrooms they’ll produce, but we can give some advice on caring for them. And in another couple years when they’re totally spent, you can either let them compost down in your yard, or you can throw them on your backyard fire. They just keep giving! =)
Lastly, we finally got enough snow to start logging! We went out last Monday for our first day and got just over 100 logs. We have a long way to go to make our goal, but we’ll get there. In true 2020 fashion, we went out on Wednesday and the skidsteer wouldn’t work. The fuel pump had gone bad! So we had to drive it to the shop for a quick fix, but that’s all fixed now and now it’s 2021, so hopefully no more shenanigans!
