Growing mushrooms in logs...

A little vid I made out in the garden.  What a revelation!  I can walk around with me Mac and film the environs while doing Permacultural stand-up comedy.  I love it.  I'll be doing this again, focusing perhaps on specific design and implementation subjects, seasons, plant, animal and fungal players, etc....

Anyway, in the very local news....

I very happy because big water-sucking lombardy poplar is gone thank you to David and a couple of Mayan guys and now the juicy chunks of its cellulose-flesh is mine to grow mushrooms and also to bury as the foundation for garden mounds or 'Hugel Kultur'.  More on that later.  Or go to this helpful blog for a good idea of what I am talking about: Lasagna gardening.

I have ordered 100 plugs each of oyster mushrooms, turkey tail, shi-itake, maitake and reishi.   All are well-documented medicinal mushrooms with wonderful attributes.   Oyster, Maitake and Shi-itake are delicious and adaptable to many dishes in the kitchen.  Turkey tail and Reishi are both medicinal mushrooms too hard or leathery to eat, but perfect for a life-saving tea.

I get my stuff from Paul Stamets, the mushroom man, and his company "Fungi Perfecti" .   

The oyster and turkey tail and about half of the shi-itake will go into the poplar logs and branches, and the other half of the shi-itake, the Reishi and Maitake will go into a bit of fresh oak which my dear Aunt bequeathed to the house as firewood.  It's still nice and green and should do just fine!  Denser wood, longer flushes.  The denser Oak is favored by Reishi, Maitake and Shi-itake.  Poplar is softer, and will produce Shi-itake, but for a shorter amount of time, as the decomposition process is quicker for softer, less dense, woods.  Oyster will grow on just about anything, including coffee grounds.

We use relatively newly cut trees because the problem with old wood is that it is often already colonized by another fungus.

Of course, apart from what we humans can 'get' directly from medicinal mushrooms, they are important players within all natural systems on terra firma, and exist for their own reasons, which happily intersect with ours, if we are open to it!   Decomposed wood makes good rich humus.... Everyone is happy, including the worms, insects and plants.

Permaculture.

The only thing you have to loose is all the crap you've accumulated

Hello and welcome to Simpling for All. If you're looking for Sampling for Allah, you've hit a few bad key strokes and should pay more attention. Simply stated, simpling is the most natural thing that you have never heard about. It is what generation upon generation of our foremothers and fathers have done to survive long enough to produce ourselves and our children.

Perhaps it is never too soon to say that there is a war going on against Simplers, and this war has always existed and shall no doubt exist in the future. This is quite relevant since a vast majority of the population, all of the 3rd world, practices Simpling. On the other hand, a small minority of very wicked and very powerful international corporate entities have taken it into their heads that it is up to them to 'Shape' and 'Save' the world, which includes removing the 'traditions' which get in the way of their machinations towards a self-anointed pseudo-Messiahship based on the logic of 'colonialism' and 'capitalism'. This logic, which is really based on slavery, insures that after the colonialist father has raped a land and its people for all it is worth, the capitalist son will step in to reconstruct the country in the image suitable to receive the 'blessings' of corporate 'advancement', all of which shall be supplied by himself, his friends, his family. Thus a family or network of families (I do not say 'coven' as I do not want to besmirch the good name of 'witches') effectively seeks to control the image and design of the world. The most noxious element of what can only be termed demonic machinations is the 'philanthropic' one, by which world governmental organizations seek to 'remedy' the 'situation' which their own ancestors, relatives or buddies created in the first place.

Faced with such a situation, many people look for scapegoats. For some it is the Jews. For others it is Europeans. Others choose the Mexicans or Blacks. In essence, Simpling proposes that in hard times, rather than scapegoat the people of the land we 'landscape with goats', and starve out the corporate slave-traders, who are the real devils.

Simpling means exactly what its name implies. Under its umbrella fall all of the usual practical activities of humankind for survival, but most specifically, those activities which involve plants and the fruit of the soil. A simpler may be someone who grows or wild gathers his own medicine and food. It may be someone who finds a simple technology or solution to a widespread problem, like water supply or seed storage. All of simpling arises naturally from the soil and from the traditions of the soil, but because it always is focused on the needs of the simple poor, it is imminently 'progressive', and aligned with the great traditions of the stars, sun and spiritual light.

The philosophy of Simpling proposes that there are simple, natural answers to all of humankind's basic needs, that these answers are multifarious, individual and site specific. No 'culling of herds', no 'killing of birds', no 'stealing of turds' necessary.

Do not follow and do not let yourself be followed! Simpling is not a movement, it is the natural state of awake humanity, it is about sharing useful ideas and making your own way, within a tradition with boundaries as vast as the earth and sky. You are already part of it! Just expand and divest yourself of 'interest'.

That's all the time I have for now. Here are some keywords for individual study:

Permaculture

Fog Catchers

Plants for a future http://www.pfaf.org/index.php

Food Forest