This week is a lot easier to write about because not that much happened. I spent the first couple days waiting to hear about my safety gear for the chainsaw, which arrived Wednesday. When I went to go pick it up, the chainsaw needed some repairs so it wasn’t until Friday that I could get started with cleaning up the trunks.
Which meant doing some little jobs around the farm and on Wednesday having a good visit with Lorin, a fungi expert. The possibilities are quite amazing for all those logs and stumps, if this winter is good- meaning, cold. If it gets cold and stays that way, then my logs should hold over til early spring for inoculating. Shiitake, chicken of the woods, oyster mushrooms, perhaps lion’s mane, reishi, and turkey tail are all options. Lorin’s visit really helped perk up my spirit- a few days of not getting much physical work done and I get antsy about the progress on the farm.
Thursday I spent at home doing office work, cleaning up spreadsheets and doing financial planning. Unfortunately, both the Finnish Tax Administration and the Economic Office’s websites were down for maintenance when I met with a friend to help with my start up grant. Still, he took the mystique out of the tax situation and I feel a lot more comfortable about what it all entails. Next week I’ll make my application for that first payment and can’t wait for it to clear.
Oh, and next week I’ll be off to Italy for a week for a wedding so we will see what I can get done Monday/Tuesday…
The mushrooms sound very promising!!! Are they a good cash crop? They will be a good addition to the farm
They can be, though one of their most appealing attributes is that I have so much wood to grow them on that to NOT choose which fungi to grow on them would be a little wasteful. Plus, by deliberately growing them, the wood will take a lot less time to decompose and return some of those nutrients/carbon to the soil. It’ll also be nice to “grow” some protein on the farm that doesn’t require so many permits either.