shroom nation!

29

Nov

Get your mind out of the gutter people, I am speaking of good ole wholesome, non-psychedelics.  That’s right, I got to stay a whole week at this amazing small farm in Sebastopol, CA, New Carpati Farms.

I spent the week pruning raspberry bushes,

eating raspberries (amongst a boat load of other amazingly delicious food!), stomping on cob,

weaving willow and cobbing a bench,

before...

day 2ish

... sort of AFTER! still needs to 'get plastered'

pasteurizing straw,

they're glowwwwwing

OH BABY! mushroom block party!

picking oysters and shitakes,

sarah whippin up some mycelium bread mix

before...

... 2 days later!

mmmhmmmmmm

2 days of magic!

blue oysters, trumpeting music to my mouth

herding sheep,

lured these guys back into the yard after about a week of roaming the lagoona. they have minds of their own, that's for sure! and about 4 horns each! WHAT

and I even got to run the mushroom stand at the farmer’s market!

new carpati stand! how could you resist buying from those cutie pies?

New Carpati was a wonderland… Steve and Selena were not only wonderful hosts and loving parents, but both have led really interesting and active lives, working on a multitude of social issues!  Selena worked in the bronx upon many other places, and is contracting herself out to work whenever and wherever she’s needed, currently on some big stuff with new laws regarding mandatory autism healthcare in CA. AND she’s a fellow crafter, I mean she was banging out homemade lanterns like it was her job!

she saw tom waits, the sebastopol local celeb in the grocery store on the 4th of july, decked out in shaggy red hair, buying a mop

And Steve, among many other things, started Farm Trails CA, a fantastic web of open farms that share the wealth of knowledge and even some surplus.

I have always lovvved mushrooms, but in the past few years my awe has definitely ballooned… Until a few years ago, mushrooms and their associated growth were the largest living thing on Earth!  And people like Paul Stamets are constantly proving the gigantic filtration capacity in the world of mycelium (the connective tissue that lives underground… you can think of it as the roots and stems of the tree if mushrooms were the fruit)

…and attempting installation for bacterial and oil cleanup in New Orleans, along the gulf coast,and even right in the center of the universe, Madison, WI!  I worked on a project at Vilas Beach last summer where we brainstormed different methods to cleanup the beach and surrounding shore, including installation of floating islands, wetland habitat, and mycelium growth under the beach where the geese hang.  I haven’t kept up with them since I’ve been on my travels, but I’m guessing they lost a bunch of funding just like the rest of the great environmental movements in WI (eg. the DNR was slashed big time in 2008 or 2009, guh, I have seen and heard too much about wonderful programming being cut!  There is an upside- communities are growing stronger and developing their own creative solutions, but there definitely needs to be more collaboration with people who have loads of money and power.)

Anywho, not only do mushrooms have an incredible ability to filter bacteria and other harmful agents in our environment, they can be incredibly healthy for us! (Although Steve says that eating raw mushrooms is apparently not as good for you as cooked, and button mushrooms are not only not beneficial, but they may actually be unhealthy!  Not sure who to believe anymore, so I’ll be looking into the primary research on this one.  CRAZY!  I don’t have to stretch my imagination too far to believe it though, probably has much to do with many other food problems- over-hybridization, depreciated soils, etc., food for thought anyway).  They have huge immune system support and anti-inflammatory properties, amongst many others that are either less studied or not well-understood.  I want to dissect!

better than chicken soup. eatchyoshitake

Ahh, the glory of the mushroom continues… apparently some researchers recently found that the mushroom kingdom is the closest to the animal kingdom!  We are more related to them than we are to the bacteria that fills our air or the vegetation that gives us food, water, shelter, and even weather.  And sarah went mushroom hunting with some hard-core shroom shreaders in WA this year and her pics and stories make the world of mushrooms an ever-growing magical mystery to me.  I can’t wait to hunt and grow and maybe move to port townsend where wizards and castles don’t seem that far off.

So many confounding conundrums in this here world.  Speaking of which, the kids I was staying with at New Carpati created this little theatrical production for Shevat.  I had the pleasure and honor to live with hermione and crookshanks for a week!

If it didn’t make any sense to you, welp, it’s another magical mystery.  Just like their land

fog retreating from the lagoonaaaaa

Opa, and here’s a pic of the fam,

and their parallel calico critters fam (who T was taking a pic of in the previous pic, hahahhah, whatta world of picture taking upon picture taking)

why hello there

They were so fantastic!  I can’t believe it.  Can’t wait to get my hands dirty in some more mushroom growing and installation. woooooo

That’s all for now, folkssssssssssss. gettin’ ready to bike off to the beach in this 80-degree weather.  I am lost.  It is almost december!  HOLY WOW.  I can’t wait to see snow and be cooped up in the cozy cold and work and knit and read my days away.  To all those gasping in horror, someone once told me I have the soul of a grandma and that was like 3 years ago, so according to how long it took me to get to grandma stage, I am technically now about 120 years old and really enjoy that stuff I metaphorically grew up with. weee ooo craft!

-v

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