We invite you to The Cooperative at Dawn Farm’s ‘Annual Edible Mushroom Log Workshop’
Join us as we learn to turn trees into gourmet mushrooms! Bring a friend for a fun and education event and take home a mushroom log that will “fruit” with Oyster mushrooms 2-4x per year, for the next 2-4 years!
We will:
Learn about the fungi kingdom and it’s critical role in ecosystems
Learn about how to turn common trees into a small mushroom farm
Work together in teams to drill and plug logs with 2 different types of spawn
Receive 1 mushroom log to take home (with after-care instructions)
Hands-on experience filling and sealing mushroom logs with professional tools
Ability to purchase additional mushroom logs for gifts, or for your own gardens
We always have a fun time doing the Mushroom Log Workshop, come join us and invite your friends!
The workshop runs on two dates, Sunday November 30th & Saturday December 6, 12-2pm both days.
We found an old image from back in the day. Back before the coop, before the food forest, there was AMPY (Abundant Michigan Permaculture Ypsilanti). We got together one day and dug a swale. It’s amazing what a group of people can do!
In 2024 we will again be hosting two mushroom workshops.
Saturday December 7 & 15, both from 12-2pm. The price is $40 and you can take home your very own mushroom log with one of three varieties of oyster mushrooms. You can take home additional logs for $25 each.
Saturday December 2 & 9, both 12-2pm. The cost is $35 and you get to take home your very own mushroom log with either one of two varieties of Oyster mushrooms or, if you’re feeling experimental, Chestnut mushrooms.
I’ve been mob grazing six sheep through the food forest. It’s been a wonderful experience. They seem very satisfied with their circumstances and are transforming the landscape as they go!
The weeds come in thick out at the farm, especially that relentless quack grass. It can often seem like such an uphill battle, especially when all of us live off site, many of us with kids and other jobs. Over the years I’ve learned the value in just showing up and doing what we can. All of it is better than not having tried! Having talked to other members at the Cooperative I can tell that, to varying degrees, we are all working on not allowing that inner voice, the one that says “you’ll never catch up!”, to get too much time to talk. A good practice for a bunch of dreamy amateur farmer/philosophers, don’t you think? That show-up-and-do-what-you-can thing is working, too. One of our members, Jesse, has a beautiful and hard-won market garden to serve as inspiration for us all. It took him a couple of seasons of hard work and patience to get his beds really established.
One of Jesse’s market garden plots, early summer 2020
A couple of days ago Milton and I were just cleaning up from a muggy morning of weeding our collaborative veggie plot. It’s a newly established garden, and so it’s one of those jobs that can feel somewhat endless. The hope, at this stage of the game, is to calm the wild plot’s urge for life just enough to give all that squash a fighting chance. While Milton and I were loading up our tools, we were struck by the contrast of the gravel parking lot by our cars. An edge, so dry and compacted compared to the rest of the place. A veritable desert, and yet- something grows here, too. We identified two particular plants thriving here, despite getting run over daily, despite earth so dry and hard you could mistake it for solid rock.
Pineapple weed
I recognized my old friend plantain right away, but the other plant I didn’t know. I said “It looks so much like chamomile!” Milton, being a more experienced forager, told me that it was called “pineapple weed” and is the wild relative of our cultivated chamomile. I asked him if it held the same medicinal properties and he thought it did!
Plantain
We took a moment to appreciate these warrior plants. It occurred to me that both of these plants have particularly calming and healing medicinal qualities. I couldn’t help but feel a wave of gratitude for this example. I notice often that healing plants tend to grow in areas that have been disturbed and traumatized. Some heal our bodies, some calm our minds, some send a deep taproot down to pull up needed minerals. I could probably do a series of posts all about these healing warrior plants (and I might just do that!), but for now, I found just the example of these two in the parking lot to stimulate a great deal of hope in me.
Reminds me of that lovely Mr. Roger’s quote: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me ‘ Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'”
So there ya go. A couple of “helpers”, doing their work on the edge, to help inspire and to remind us of our living potential, right in the rocky heart of these particular times.
Well, look at that! We’re wrapping up the first quarter of 2020 and haven’t made a post yet. That doesn’t mean nothing is happening…
We’ve been building rain gardens, breaking stuff, fixing it, trimming trees, prepping beds, moving wood chips, cleaning up, and just generally preparing for spring. I think my favorite thing about it is just spending time getting to know the space better and better.
The raingarden and general earthworks seem to be doing their jobs so now it’s a matter of tweaking them. Slowing, sinking, and spreading the water. Sitting with it to see how it evolves, what wants to happen.
Grass in the hoops started growing the minute we had 10+ hours in the day, way back in the beginning of February. The food forest is just barely starting to wake up.
There’s an old grandmother red oak tree in the wood lot along Hitchingham. She might be 150 years old. There seems to be some evidence of dumping in the back acres, too. Only the oak knows when.
So, an update! While keeping up a website seems to be hit and miss for us, activities at the coop continue nonetheless.
Our first order of business is to announce our annual Mushroom Log Workshop! You can see more information on our workshop page.
Also notice that our Instagram feed is prominently displayed on our website. It’s easier to post a quick picture and be done. If you’re on the platform join us!
