Garage cleaning. What the heck is this tool? It has a pivoting pointy poker thing on it. Otherwise looks like a multi-wrench of some kind.
I made a little grease man out of congealed grease!
Ms. Shiv was unimpressed.
Ms. Shiv was unimpressed.
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The bent punch looking thing is probably a bent punch
The other thing is a wrench for an old tool, maybe used for changing a blade on a saw.
Thereās a cool subreddit called r/whatisthisthing you should get a very fast very accurate answer over there
Your grease snowman reminded meā¦
When we were kids spending the weekend at grandmaās, we would open the old latex paint cans and play with the dried paint. If there were a couple inches you could make all kinds of things, it was like playdough.
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My missus has been very understanding of all my hobbies this far, but has drawn the line at mushrooms!
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Shiitake?
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Good Luck! Boa Sorte!
I predict a future post in the Food&Drinks section of this BBS.
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What is that tool you are using to insert the plugs of spores into the log? Is it custom for the task, or did you adapt something?
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These tools are called inoculators. This was a mushroom-log-making workshop, hosted by a woodsy acquaintance. We drilled the logs (oak for the shiitake, maple for the lions-mane) using an angle grinder with a high-speed drill bit. Many many holes to drill. You tamp the inoculator in the sawdust that contains the starter mycelium, then hit the plunger to put a plug in each hole. Cover it with melted wax. Throw or pile the logs in a corner of your yard, and wait. Keep from drying out completely. Itās a lot of work up front, but these logs could be producing mushrooms for 5 years.
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Looks an awful lot like a pedal wrench (though the largest cutout looks a bit large for that).
But I have no idea how the pivot-thing could relate to pedals. May be a case of convergent evolution 
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Scope creepā¦ I had to get the message board just right. (Still working on the themes, and making the Markdown libraries agree with each other.)
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I have a new hoarding problem.
Avocado seeds!
I cannot throw them away anymore, instead I sprout them. ( BtW they all sprout! )
AvoBonsai! Is my goal. Really, itās a thing, look it up.
Also makes me wonder why our garbage dumps are not a forest of Avocado trees?
I remove the outer seed coat and wrap in a damp paper towel and place in a plastic bag. In a few weeks a root will form and can be moved into a container with water or plant in a pot.
I really cannot stop now, I even went through our compost went I realized my wife had thrown one in it.
My Pinterest board:
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Thereās only one option left at this point - grow your own toast.
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Iām really glad I saw this post! We just had some tree work done last week and ended up with a few perfectly-sized maple logs. I hadnāt even been thinking about mushrooms, but saw this and our oyster mushroom plugs should be here tomorrow. Great weekend project ahead of us.
Thanks! And may all your logs be fruitful.
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Cool! FYI, we were told to use ācheese waxā for sealing the holes because itās food-grade.
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Good to know. I might need a new drill bit, too. I did this once in college, at our college greenhouse/gardens. I think we just used beeswax candles, maybe? Iād moved on to a different campus job before they started fruiting, though, so thisāll be an adventure.
I remember all the drilling, though, and want a nice sharp bit.
Iāve been wanting to do something with 'shrooms for a while now. So the timing of seeing your post and having our trees trimmed was really perfect.
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I showed the missus the mushroom pictures and broached the subject again. She harrumphed and said āwell, if you keep it outsideā. I felt like I was five years old! But she clearly isnāt happy so Iāll leave the mushroom culture to yāall.
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I use the sawdust and wood chips from my woodshop, pasteurize it and fill cat litter buckets with holes drilled in them to grow oyster mushrooms. Easy, almost free and amazingly productive. Then after they are spent, I dump the leavings around the fruit and nut trees. I have tried the log method with no notable success, though.
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Iām sure you could stash some logs away in your lush gardenā¦but then winter would come and (bum bum bummmmmm!) youād be exposed!
After we do the logs Iām thinking about trying one of the coffee-ground-based methods. We make french press coffee almost every day, so have a good supply of grounds. I guess that would probably have to be in the basement. The boiler is down there, so itās toasty in the winter, and since weāre in New England, relatively humid year round.
@anon29537550 - that sounds awesome, and I also have lots of sawdust in my life. Post pics if you can, but Iām off to do some more internet searching! P.S. Iāve tried a āgrow your ownā kit that sounds similar, but had only very mediocre successā¦I wonder if we did something wrong. Itās so dry around here in the winter, in the main part of the houseā¦
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Usually get those going in May, so I will post when I do.
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