The Magical Mushroom Tour

How many of you have ever thought about where those attractive shiitake mushrooms in the grocery store come from? Yeah... me either. I knew mushrooms grew in forests, of course, and in Indiana there are dozens of little Mushroom Festivals that dot the rural countryside during the appropriate seasons, often in quaint little towns that also house adorable Covered Bridge Festivals and Fourth of July Festivals with people dressed in pioneer clothing and a real blacksmith and a guy dressed as Abe Lincoln.

The term "mushroom farm", however, was alien to me. Yet logically, there has to be a way to farm mushrooms, because there is just no way that mushroom hunters could find enough wild shiitakes to populate every grocery store in the lower forty-eight.

On Tuesday, I visited Sharondale Farm, a mushroom growing operation, in Keswick, VA - about an hour south of Brightwood. It was part of the CRAFT program, or "Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training". Basically, a bunch of farms in the region get all their interns/apprentices together and visit one another in order to better educate said interns. There were maybe 15 of us there to learn about the joys of mushroom farming, including myself, Susan, Caitlin, and Robin.*

When we walked into the "Mushroom Forest," it took me a few minutes to realize I was even looking at the mushroom farm part of the business. The paths were lined with logs that were propped up in an A-frame sort of construction. In some areas, groups of logs were lying on the ground in a row. After wandering around somewhat stupidly for a moment, I took a closer look at some large growths coming out of the logs.

Well, what do you know. Mushrooms.

Mark Jones, the guy who runs Sharondale Farm, gave us a bit of a guided tour and explained the process of cultivating mushrooms. He starts by capturing wild mushroom strains that he finds in forests, and grows them in his house in petri dishes, which he uses to inoculate sawdust with the mushroom spawn. He then takes logs - white oak for shiitake - and drills holes in the wood in a diamond pattern. He packs the holes with the shroomy sawdust, seals it shut, and waits for the log to begin fruiting. (You can see the drill holes in the picture above.)

Mark seems like a pretty cool dude. He has a full beard and wore a ratty LSU sweatshirt, left over from his grad school days, as he showed us around his property. He designed his gardens using permaculture, an approach that tries to mimic natural patterns and relationships, and as with many small farms, nothing goes to waste.

What comes to mind specifically are his mushroom spawn inoculated sawdust blocks. After Mark is done with them, he uses the blocks to line his garden beds. As a result, feral mushrooms spring up from the blocks that weren't quite finished fruiting, giving the entire garden a rather surreal, Alice-In-Wonderland type of feel. When the logs start declining, he pulls them and uses them to line the trails in the so-called "Magical Forest"** beyond his gardens, where feral mushrooms also are known to spring up from logs with a little more oomph left in them.

Interesting sign in the greenhouse

To put a finishing touch on the visit, Mark gave us paper bags and let us pick as many feral mushrooms as we wanted. Susan got quite a harvest for the house, and that very evening I used them to make a lovely Wild Mushroom Soup. Alas - I forgot to take a picture of it. We still have enough for another batch, however, and Susan and Dean have requested another concoction. Hopefully my wits won't leave me next time. In any case, the recipe is below, adapted from the Simply-In-Season cookbook. And while I did not have any psychedelic experiences after eating them, I will end with the caveat to be careful what mushrooms you pick, in case you do.


*Robin is another part-time worker at the farm. She and her fiance are starting their own mushroom farm this year. I had no idea mushroom farming was so popular.
**One area we didn't get to visit was Mark's indoor operation, where he grows the mushroom spawn and inoculates the sawdust. While there might be a legitimate reason for not going in there, like contamination, I lean towards the explanation that he's growing other "special" harvests. The "Magical Forest" might not be the only "magical" thing around Sharondale...


Read on for the Wild Mushroom Soup recipe.

The Great Chicken Heist

It was the perfect night for a chicken heist.

Well, actually, that's not true. It was about 25 F last night and we were all freezing our tails off in the dark. But there was still beauty in the cold - the newly formed frost that crunched crisp and fresh under our feet, our breath billowing like steam in the beams of our headlamps, and the stars, undimmed by city lights and flickering above us in the frigid air.

Not that I had much time to observe such things. We were moving chickens.

It was a three part operation. Part One: Take down the fence and move the mobile chicken coop to the front yard. Part Two: Move the young chickens from the front yard coop into the mobile chicken coop with the rest of the chickens. Part Three: Move the mobile chicken coop to a new location and set up the fence.

The second part was where things got tricky. Susan, Caitlin (a part time worker on the farm) and I formed a daisy chain that went like this: Caitlin crawls into the tiny front yard chicken coop, grabs a chicken, and hands it to me. I pin down the chickens wings - or, for the roosters, hold them upside down by their feet - and carry the chicken out to Susan, who puts it in the big mobile coop. Easy as pie.

Well, maybe "easy" isn't the right word. For example, please examine Exhibit A - the fact that we were doing this in the dark wasn't because we just got too busy to do it earlier, but because, according to the theory, chickens are sleepy and therefore much more docile at night. We also turned our headlamps to infrared light for the endeavor, since chickens can't see infrared light, helping to preserve the atmosphere of calm and docility. Or so I'm told. Because if what I witnessed last night is evidence of chicken "docility", all I can say is I never want to move one when it's being feisty.

Who can blame them, really? I certainly wouldn't stay calm if some disembodied force came out of nowhere to pluck me from my nice warm bed and stuff me in a new one that was already inhabited by people who hate me for disturbing their rest. And based on last night's events, I think some of the chickens would say the same.

Regardless, the entire episode only took a little over an hour, and all things considered, the chickens were fairly well behaved, despite the inelegant interruption to their night. And in the end, it was yet another new and exciting experience to add to my list of things I would never have done if I weren't here.

Pick Me, Squeeze Me, Wine Me - The Amazing, Alluring Elderberry

My love affair with wine goes way back. Perhaps not quite to “knee high to a pig’s eye” stage, but I can remember sipping my mother’s White Zinfandel at the tender age of ten – under her supervision, of course. Around the same time, my dad taught me the basics of wine tasting (sniff, swirl, gaze, taste, rinse, repeat…), which allowed me to wow adults at gatherings who were astonished at my alcoholic savant-ness.

Elderflower wine, freshly bottled by yours truly

Despite this promising beginning, I would not call myself a wine aficionado.  In fact, I don’t even know some of the most rudimentary basics about wine. But I have never allowed this to stop me from appreciating what I consider to be a decent glass of fermented grapes. In fact, in some ways I think my ignorance has freed me from the fetters of the pretension and arrogance of wine appreciation. I like a wine because I like it, not because I’m supposed to. And if a wine I like isn’t quality enough for someone with more discerning tastes, that’s just fine. More for me.

That being said – Brightwood Vineyard and Farm is also a winery. They are even listed in the 2011 Virginia Winery Guide, a move that has already garnered them some attention from consumers who apparently memorize said guide every year. (“Hi, I saw your winery listed in this year’s guide, and you weren’t there last year!”)

Susan and Dean’s winery operation is small, to be sure, and is quite unusual – although they grow grapes, they currently don’t grow enough to make wine. They make wine primarily from other berries and fruits, all of which are either grown here on the farm, or come from their neighbors when there is a surplus. Dean calls it “wine your grandmother made” – mulberry, pear, peach, blackberry, and so forth. But their biggest contributor is the elderberry plant.

Yeasty sediment in some racked elderberry wine

Dean actually uses two parts of the elderberry to make wine – the berry and the flower. Dry elderberry wine is comparable to a good Cabernet Sauvignon, and if you are untutored and/or don’t have a glass of the real deal nearby, it would be quite easy to mistake it for one.

Full-strength elderberry wine is a teensy bit too hard-core for a lot of people, however, so Dean prepares several versions of it. Of the dry wine, he makes rosè, middling, and full-on. More popular, though, is the sweetened elderberry wine. There is also elderflower wine, made from the blossoms of the plant in almost exactly the same way you make it from the fruit. Unsweetened, it tastes a bit… well… flowery. Kind of like liquid honeysuckle, I thought. But he also makes a sweetened version with brown sugar that resembles port or cordial, and is fabulous as a dessert wine or an accompaniment to some good cheese.

I learned much of this today – as well as getting a general overview of the wine making process – as I helped Dean rack* and bottle a few different wines. I also got plenty of experience in washing and sterilizing the accouterments of wine making, which are many.

Dean demonstrates how to siphon wine

Mostly, I got a fabulous view of what happens to wine after it is racked for the first time. With Dean’s guidance, I helped re-rack two carboys** of rosè and medium-strength elderberry wine (one each); sweeten a demijohn of elderberry wine and rack it into three carboys, a gallon jug and a very large wine bottle; and bottle a carboy of the brown sugar sweetened elderflower wine. I also got to heat-seal aluminum caps on all the bottled wine, only slightly singeing myself in the process.

And to put a finishing touch on the day, a cottage guest*** came to visit the basement winery…and she happens to be designing part of an exhibit on wine for the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Perhaps Dean and Susan will be able to play a part in that exciting saga…who knows?!

Sweet elderberry wine, ready for bottling

*Rack (verb): to put wine into a containment vessel for storage and continued fermentation. I made this definition up, but basically you rack wine for several months before you bottle it.

**Carboy (noun): A three- to six-gallon jug. Another useful vocab word is demijohn (a 15-gallon jug).

***The farm also has a cottage that they run as a B&B sort of deal.

Life on the Farm - Let's meet our contestants!

Who doesn't picture a farm without a some chickens, a cow in the distance, and a few cats killing mice in the barns? Although Brightwood Farm doesn't have all the most stereotypical livestock wandering around, Susan and Dean do have plenty of animals roaming their gently rolling hills - in fact, they were featured in a local paper today about raising heritage breeds. (Check out the article to learn a bit about the farm and to see a great picture of Susan with her heritage Indian Runner ducks.)

So without further ado, allow me to introduce the players - give it up for the inhabitants of Brightwood Vineyard and Farm!



From Left: Sadie, Izzie, Rosie

The donkeys - Sadie, Rosie and Izzie - are used for what Susan calls "fertility" (a euphamism meaning "manure"), which is used in their compost. Izzie is also Rosie's daughter - when Susan and Dean bought Rosie, they thought she was just getting fat. Au contraire, as they discovered one morning upon finding a slimmed down Rosie and a baby donkey with enormous ears.

Next up are the sheep. They are friendly. Very friendly. (PS: That is Isaac, the friendly WWOOF-er).

And what are sheep without goats? Feeding them is Caitlin, who works on the farm a couple days every week.



Juan the goat.

Naturally with all these tasty treats practically laying around for the taking, something must be done to protect them. That's where the guard dogs come in.



Charlie the dog.

Charlie hangs out with the sheep all day, in a field adjascent to a couple goats (Juan and Phil, a bottle baby goat) and the donkeys. (Charlie is also camera shy, so I had to be covert while lurking about shamelessly.) He is a Maremma Sheepdog, a breed of livestock guardian dog originally bred in central Italy.

Charlie has a brother, named Ben.

Ben guards the chickens.

And while we're on the subject of birds, let's not forget the ducks and Guinea fowl.

They might eat ticks, but Guinea fowl are still one of the most obnoxious birds on the planet.

Duck eggs - apparently great for baking.

There are actually more, but I won't make this entry any more unwieldy than it already is. You will have to wait to meet the rest until later.

Until next time...

Arrival of Spring (and me) at Brightwood Farm

Yesterday, I drove up to my home away from home for the next eight months. Coincidentally, it was also the Vernal Equinox. And I think it's safe to say that in Brightwood, Virginia, spring has truly sprung.

My road trip here was nice and leisurely. The first leg wasn't very eventful - I stayed the night in Berkley, West Virginia, not too far from where I went on disaster relief with AmeriCorps NCCC in 2009.*

In the morning, I took a look in the nearby tourist trap, the Tamarack, which is a big building full of "authentic West Virginia-made items". It had more than its fair share of kitsch, as well as one of the more passive-aggressive signs I've seen for a while.

For the rest of West Virginia, I drove two-lane highways and played Country Roads, Take Me Home and Wagon Wheel on repeat. As an acquaintance told me, "I'm pretty sure it's West Virginia state law that Country Roads be played at least once an hour." I did my best to comply.

Also went for a short hike at a state park, saw the tunnel where John Henry beat the drill machine and collapsed, and stopped at at least three overlooks.

The only part about my day that was better than the road trip was actually arriving at the farm. Susan and Dean put me to work immediately, helping Susan and Isaac - a WWOOF-er here for the week - to plant swiss chard and two types of beets, as you can see below. Then we demolished a pile of sticks with a wood chipper.




I really think this is the best farm I could have picked. Susan and Dean are gracious, conversational, and seem to be fabulous teachers. Brightwood Farm is incredibly diversified - animal husbandry, vegetable/berry/grape production, wine and jam making... and despite being in the middle of the backwaters of Virginia, the farm always seems filled to bursting with WWOOF-ers, visitors, and part-time workers. I am so looking forward to this year.

Tomorrow (hopefully), hear the tale of the little lettuce that could.



*And I learned that Welch, WV is the site of the first municipally owned and operated parking garage. Who knew?

On The Road Again...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single dog in want of a good adventure will jump into any open car he sees.

So, after I packed my car and hugged my parents and went to the bathroom one last time*, I went outside to actually leave. And what did I find? A stowaway, of course.

...and a stowaway wannabe.

Any-hoo. I'll stop posting pictures of dogs now. I swear I'm not one of those people.*

I'm currently in Beckley, West Virginia, a bit over halfway to Brightwood Vineyard and Farm, where I will be spending the next eight months (approximately) of my life. I should be arriving sometime in the afternoon tomorrow, and starting work on Monday.

And - of course - I will be transcribing my many new experiences here. So stay tuned!


*I still had to pee half an hour later. I have a bladder the size of a grape.
**Cross my heart. We don't have a dachshund-sized Santa Costume. Would I lie to you?

"You're right in liking meat!" - American Beef Mania continues

The I ♥ Beef! campaign, a snazzy new advertising program that's trying to bolster interest in that most American of products, is definitely not the first time the meat industry has tried to use utter absurdity to beef up (ha) their sales.

I'm not sure what bothers me most about these advertisements. The poor grammer? The perfectly manicured nails that are painted to match the color of raw steak? The fact that it calls pork sausages "tasty little mouthfuls of flavor" and claims they are "cheery eating anytime"?

However creepy the meat advertisements of yore are, the Beef Board is working to counteract that by emphasizing beef's inherent sexiness. According to their beef checkoff-funded consumer market research, 50% of Americans think Filet Mignon is the best way to say "I love you." Oh baby.

Speaking of babies... they need meats too. Meats. Plural.