“Tick tick tick” is the sound of hammers on the mushroom plugs. The plug sinks resolutely into the drilled hole after each hit until it settles just under the surface of the bark. This is repeated somewhere between 30 and 50 times even though 25 times is more than acceptable. But this is a workshop and most of the participants are inoculating their own log for the first time ever.
Workshops are an effective way of passing on practical and general information in a comfortable setting. Not only do the participants get a crash-course in inoculation but they also discover the connection between a mushroom, mycelium and a fungus. Basic information that most people know little bits about but not how it fits together. Precisely my own situation many years ago.
Once the calendar hits half October workshops are part of my weekend until mid-December. Logs are sourced, drills are checked and bags of spawn plugs carefully marked so that they do not get sold mistakenly to online customers beforehand. On the evening of the workshop I grab a couple of handfuls of dried shii-take out my seemingly bottomless supply and together with a number of other ingredients mix them together in a big soup pan. The following day the shii-take soup signals the end of the workshop, the participants then grumble good-naturedly that the bulky log does not fit into their bicycle bag and everyone goes home happy and hopefully a little bit wiser.
Workshop
