Some visitors to the farm come just for the food!
Oh deer - so much yummy grass to eat!
Some visitors... well I have no idea how this little guy got into our kitchen, into the pile of clean dishes next to the sink!
Hey, maybe there is more moisture here than outside! Ribbit.
Other visitors make their presence known, but we never see them...
This last picture shows the metal pole our bird feeders were hanging from - that is now bent almost in half! I'm pretty sure it was a bear! It happened at night when it was too dark to see anything, although Spore saw it and it terrified him. He ran and hid and wouldn't come out till the next day. We managed to get the pole bent back straight again (mostly) and I'm now putting the suet feeder away at night so we don't attract more bears!
As promised last week, there were definitely a LOT of shiitake to pick from our first batch of logs for the season. We are still picking them this morning!
So many beautiful shiitake! They should be showing up in Twin Cities area co-ops this week or next.
Friends, we are 9 logs away from inoculating 4,000 logs! The goal of course was 4,400, but we won't make that. I was really hoping we'd stop last week - but there are a few more bags of spawn left and Jeremy doesn't want to quit till those are all done. But... we'll see. We're filling up the high tunnel with force-fruiting logs, there are still freshly inoculated logs to move out of the high tunnel, 2020 logs to move out of the incubation space (for the 2021 logs to move into), a leak in the well line that really needs to be fixed, shade structure fabric that still needs to go up, and that bigger fruiting chamber is still in process! Plus a myriad of other smaller tasks. We're feeling a bit overwhelmed!
But, our new picker/packer starts tomorrow (hooray!) and we have two interns joining us within the week. Hopefully we'll have enough hands on deck to get through the back log and get caught up!
Spore likes to sleep on laps, but he's a bit big so he spreads out and inevitably I find myself holding his head up with my hand or arm. When that gets uncomfortable for me, I can usually slip a pillow under his head. Spore is thinking, "This is the life!"
