Rain!
At long last we got a decent rain on the mountain, a little more than 0.4 inches last evening and this morning. It was sorely needed.
In anticipation of rain, I decided to finish logging my mushroom logs late yesterday afternoon. I got there just as the real loggers were leaving with their real chain saws. Now you talk about some tough guys, that would be loggers. Not an ounce of fat on those guys and arms like stumps. I waited until they were gone to strap on my sawing chaps and crank up my little 16-inch buzz saw. In comparison, my saw sounds like a Suzuki motorcycle. Theirs? Harley Hog with straight pipes.
Anyhow, I beat the rain and here 100 logs ready for inoculating with Shiitake spores.
Now that involves boring about 5000 hole (half an inch in diameter and an inch deep), filling with spore-bearing sawdust and sealing with cheese wax. Then you throw them in the woods and wait for mushroom to hatch. If all goes well, we should have the first crop this fall in time to stuff the Thanksgiving turkey.
Mushroom farming is labor intensive and nearly all of it is up front in log preparation. A real operation involves at least 1000 logs. So, with logs having a production life of 5 years, you need to prepare about 200 new logs each year to sustain each 1000 logs Variable costs are about $0.25 for each log and $0.75 for the spores. For that $1 and your labor, you can produce a total of about $25 in mushrooms per log. Now, that's a real variable margin!
And, that's why the woods are full of mushroom logs these days.
In anticipation of rain, I decided to finish logging my mushroom logs late yesterday afternoon. I got there just as the real loggers were leaving with their real chain saws. Now you talk about some tough guys, that would be loggers. Not an ounce of fat on those guys and arms like stumps. I waited until they were gone to strap on my sawing chaps and crank up my little 16-inch buzz saw. In comparison, my saw sounds like a Suzuki motorcycle. Theirs? Harley Hog with straight pipes.
Anyhow, I beat the rain and here 100 logs ready for inoculating with Shiitake spores.
Now that involves boring about 5000 hole (half an inch in diameter and an inch deep), filling with spore-bearing sawdust and sealing with cheese wax. Then you throw them in the woods and wait for mushroom to hatch. If all goes well, we should have the first crop this fall in time to stuff the Thanksgiving turkey.
Mushroom farming is labor intensive and nearly all of it is up front in log preparation. A real operation involves at least 1000 logs. So, with logs having a production life of 5 years, you need to prepare about 200 new logs each year to sustain each 1000 logs Variable costs are about $0.25 for each log and $0.75 for the spores. For that $1 and your labor, you can produce a total of about $25 in mushrooms per log. Now, that's a real variable margin!
And, that's why the woods are full of mushroom logs these days.
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