Mushroom logs are showing signs of mycelium on the ends.
@ClutchLinkey What beetles are these? I just shook my mushroom buckets and some odd insects came out. Black and brown, size of a large ant, raised abdomen? Is my crop ruined?
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I can some, but most go into the dehydrator. They keep amazingly well for soups and stews in the winter. Just brought in my second flush. Almost as much as the first. They must like the offerings this year!
Also, i get gobs of those⌠beetles? Insects, anyway. No, they are harmless. I just rinse the mushrooms before processing and wash them off. No harm, no foul.
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Wow! I might need to move our buckets. Itâs mostly shady, but we got some trees trimmed so not as much as Iâd like. I could move them into the woodsâŚ
No second flush on our oysters yet, and still very little on the lions mane.
Weâve already started saving up coffee grounds for the next try, though. Hopefully that will make a difference. 
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I think probably rove beetles? They donât look much like other beetles because the wing covers are short. The ones I have seen here, including on mushrooms, tend to be black but apparently some are partly brown or even red. Most kinds are predatory on other bugs, but I donât know if that would apply here or not.
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Yes! Thatâs what I saw. Iâm glad theyâre not eating my crop. They might even be feeding on the mushroom gill beetles.
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Completely unrelated to making, crafting, creating, but nevertheless interesting speculation about rove beetles:
Blister beetles and the ten plagues
Sir
Several interpretations of the biblical ten plagues (Exodus 7:14â12:30) postulate that the insects of the third and fourth plagues gave rise to the boils of the sixth plague.
The notion that these were arthropod-borne epidemics, such as bubonic plague, trypanosomiasis, or leishmaniasis, is unlikely because the Israelites probably would not have escaped such widely transmitted diseases. Reports of invasions of blister-inducing rove beetles in southwest Asia suggest a novel explanation.
Many rove beetles (Paederus spp, Staphylinidae) have a toxic haemolymph called paederin that causes painful necrotic blisters when a beetle is crushed on the skin.
Rove beetle populations are generally small but under the right environmental conditions, they can reach spectacular size. At night, beetles are attracted to lights and commonly descend on inhabited areas, blackening walls. The ensuing vesication can injure thousands of people and has forced the evacuation of entire communities.
The first two plagues may have produced ideal conditions for massive breeding of Paederus. In the first plague, âthe water of the Nile turned to bloodâ, probably because of a bloom of toxic phytoplankton (a red tide). The anoxic conditions in the river killed the fish and forced âfrogs onto the land of Egyptâ, causing the second plague.
Rove beetles, which breed in the marshy banks of the Nile and scavenge tadpoles and carrion, were provided heaps of decaying frogs on which their numbers could flourish. Thus arose the third and fourth plagues, in which âgrievous swarms of insects invaded Pharaohâs palace and the houses of Egyptâ. Rove beetle swarms are normally focal, which may explain why the insects plagued the Egyptian community but spared the neighbouring Israelites.
Soon thereafter, âboils ([shâchin]: boils or eruption) breaking forth with blains ([avahbuâot]: blisters or boils) on man and beastâ formed the sixth plague. Paederin-induced blisters erupt 1â4 days after exposure; thus, victims frequently do not associate the beetles and skin lesions causally and think of them as separate events.
We propose that the third and fourth plagues were an invasion of Paederus, probably P alfierii, a blister-causing rove beetle that lives in the Nile delta, whose population exploded under the conditions of the first two plagues. The swarm was localised to the humid Nile delta area, affecting only the Egyptian community, and the subsequent outbreak of blisters, occurring several days later, was perceived as a separate eventâthe sixth plague.
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Karl Rove beetlesâŚ
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If you have surplus mushrooms Ikea can always use them.
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For our last camping trip, we made some fire starters from dryer lint, toilet paper rolls, and paraffin wax. They worked brilliantly, even after it rained our first night and all the wood we could collect was wet. We didnât even need any paper. Each TP roll makes 3 fire starters.
The limiting factor seems to be the dryer lint (household of 2) so I want to start collecting for the next batch.
My question to fellow craftyboingers- anyone know of a relatively dust-free way to keep that stuff? Just having a plastic bag to stuff it into makes the bathroom all dusty.
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Gallon-size ziploc does the trick for me.
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I like using the leftover plastic containers in which I buy my bulk baking soda. Itâs free Tupperware!
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Thanks, both!
Now Iâm curious - what are @knoxblox , @NukeML and others saving dryer lint for? Crafty mutants want to know!
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Not actually saving dryer lint, but the containers are big, and good for storing odd stuff, like clothespins!
ETA: Whenever I need lint, I just look in my belly button.
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I save it for starting fires too. Its free, reliable and portable
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Iâve been using fat wood to start our fires. I get a big box every couple years. Fat wood is pine wood from pine stumps. Itâs filled with natural resin and can be easily lit.
That being said, we get a crap ton of lint because we wash a few hundred small towels every week for our business.
How do you mix the paraffin with the lint. Iâd love to try that.
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My summer Hefeweizen is ready to drink! Lovely notes of banana (just look at it) and cloves.
I need to set up a beer trade with @anon33932455
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Holy crap thatâs a great idea. We all hear constantly about how flammable the stuff is. I never thought to use it for that property. 
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I could steal some of my spouseâs mead for trade!
That beer looks lovely
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We did a pretty simple version. Heat up 1 lb of paraffin wax in a double boiler set up. While that heats, cut 5 tp tubes into 3 shorter cylinders each, place upright on wax paper and stuff full of dryer lint.
Use an extra tube for wicks - cut little rectangles and insert into each cylinder, leaving about 1/2 sticking out.
When wax is melted, pour over lint.
Let cool and add more, if desired. We flipped after cooled and added more.
Like I said, they worked amazingly well! They burned for a good 10 minutes, plenty of time to catch the wet twigs we were using for kindling.
Only down side, and it wasnât bad, is it was very hot on our paddle out to the site, so they melted a tiny bit in the ziploc bag we had them in. I think I might wrap them individually in newspaper if weâre doing another long paddle or hike in hot weather.
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Iâve got some ESB left, a gallon of sage-limoncello, and some 18 month old mead. Started this today:
1lb lightly toasted walnuts, 1/4c honey, 750ml VSOP brandy. Itâll sit for a few weeks, get strained, have a brown simple syrup mixed in, and then serve as an aperitif.
With @Kii we might need a trading circle.
I also made this today. A 3âx10âx10âh âfeederâ for the chickens. Iâll plant a bunch of tasty plants for them (mint, wormwoood, garlic, nasturtiums, marigolds, etc). Itâll grow to where they can nibble but not destroy the plant.
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