I am a GMO elephant born in Africa, moved to America, until Matumaini launches to the Stars. I like to flap my ears, bounce back and forth from one front leg to another, and wander about the savannah gorging on delicious elephant grass. I speak guttural English, Swahili, and Tembo. In my spare time, I like to travel, take pictures, and write for this blog.
The air chills as we gain altitude cruising along a long straight stretch of the 127 heading North from Baker to Furnace Creek in Death Valley. The solitude of the road is a welcome change from the madness that races along the 15 to Las Vegas. The road stretches to the horizon and then disappears into the mountains splitting a basin, the green balls of creosote bush turning into a distant lattice of green pixels as the ground slopes up gently before giving way to rugged slopes of tan, brown, and chocolate mountains. A long band of cirrus clouds reaches up from the mountains their tips curled back like fingers beckoning me to come this way.
I kick around at the oak leaf litter hoping to find a mushroom trying to poke its way through the ground cover to scatter its spores to the wind. I avoid all the leafless stems poking up at the base of the big oaks trying to avoid poison oak; even without the leaves, the stems have enough Urushiol to cause irritation. The dry weather of the past couple of weeks has left fungi in short supply. Most of the few mushrooms I find, are already blackened with decay.
I continue checking out the base of the oak trees. Many species of mushrooms are mycorrhizal symbiants with the oaks. I see a promising disturbance in the ground, kick away the leaves and sticks, to find an intact specimen (identity unknown). I tidy up the fungus trying to render it presentable, and snap off a few shots. I bag my specimen and move on.
A fallen tree is loaded with turkey tail mushrooms, the very hard shelf mushrooms that grow out of fallen trees like the tree sprouted ears and then fell on its side. I take a couple of pics, break off a few samples with my knife and bag’em.
The treasure hunt continues. I finally run into a little forest of coprinus atramentarius. This interesting family of mushrooms is known as the inky caps. These mushrooms deliquese (liquefy), digesting themselves via hydrolytic enzymes. For the moment, they are solid, I clear out some of the ground cover, take some pictures, and only dig out two to take back to the foray staging area, since I know they will not last very long before they turn into a goopey mess.
Back at the staging area, a property at the foot of Mount Palomar, other collectors have not found much either but there are a couple of interesting finds: the black-tipped, white-grooved, false morels that contain MMH (jet fuel), some cup fungi that remind me of the tawny, raw-hide chew toys I give the dogs, and the fat-stemmed, blue stained, gilled mushrooms that I’ll have to wait for an expert to identify.
The owner of the property, sets up lunch, salads, cheeses, cookies, wines and someone even contributed a mead. He tried to start a truffle farm in Southern California by importing the trees from Italy with roots still intact and already innoculated with truffle spores and mushrooms. Success has been elusive due to his nemeses, and mine, the gopher.
I feel the lure of being outdoors living in the rhythms of the day of hot and cold and bright and dark, subject to the patterns of the weather, not in control, but continually adapting and finding my own rhythms leaving the blandness of a completely controlled environment at room temperature with constant light staring at lifeless walls that protect but don’t move, live, or breath. I enjoy actually being in the environment, of smelling it and feeling it. As much as I value abstract thinking and ideas or how my mind can make a grouping of words come to life or empathize with the dancing pixels on a TV screen or lose time in a problem, it doesn’t seem real unless I can touch it. When we lose contact with some one, we say we lose touch. Touch is intimacy, with another person, with a rock, a tree, or a trail. I like to trade the habits of my normal day, not thinking any more that each day is a stepping stone for improvement to the next, but embracing what each day has to offer, each day within its own horizon.
The dust blows in thin ribbons down the trail. A dust devil spins through the chaparral. The cirrus clouds curl and stretch across the blue sky. The salt and pepper speckled granite blocks freckle the green mountains. The shadowed ribs of the mountains drop into the canyon; the valley floor speckled with the flaming leaves of sycamore trees. Off in the distance, in the north face of mountain, lie the whitish lining of the three sisters waterfalls. The surprisingly hot November sun heats the already sun-baked trail.
It is only two miles from trail head to waterfalls. On a flat, I could be there in forty minutes, maybe less. But 600 yards of that two miles, about a third of a mile, is a vertical drop of at least a couple hundred feet. The worst parts of the trail are a steep powdery soil with difficult purchase, some choosing to just butt slide down the worst parts. Exposed rock faces have to be negotiated in three or four point stances using both feet and hands, I think the very definition of climbing and not hiking. The bottom section, still steep, is more stair-like. A rope dangles from the stump of a tree to negotiate a ten foot drop. Finally, the trail levels out into the canyon studded with sycamores and poison oak. Getting in is the easy part, we have plenty of time to contemplate that same route out.
The temperature drops ten, maybe fifteen degrees as the road gains elevation into Joshua Tree National Park. I feel a chill as I ride my motorcycle in my summer jacket even though I had the foresight to wear long johns. At the visitor center, I layer up with a long sleeve sweat shirt and a neck warmer that I pull up over my ears and the back of my head like a ski mask. On sun soaked San Diego days, it is easy to forget that it is already November and we are deep into fall.
The road climbs through the desert. Creosote, ocotillo, mojave yucca, smoke trees carpet the basin to the northeast fading into the horizon and distant hills and roll up to the rusty, barren mountains just off to the South of the road. Chris and I take a brief break in the Cholla Cactus garden walking the quarter mile trail. The deceptive, fuzzy look of this cactus gives them the ironic name of “Teddy Bear” cholla. No one dares hug this hostile plant. No sane person would have a garden of these things. The slightest of touches is enough for the spines to catch, snap off, and dig into their unfortunate victim. I’ve had prior experience pulling out the spines from my hand with a pliers leaving behind little pin prick blood splotches that look like a case of the hives.
Back at the parking lot, two older gentlemen admire our bikes. The white-bearded, pot bellied man comes from Alaska and is a fountainhead of information on motorcycling to and in the frontier state. The Pan American highway has 200 miles of unpaved road, down from 1500 miles when he first made the trip some forty years ago. Motorcycle outfits guide riders to the Arctic ocean, one of my bucket list items. He recommends flying up in the late summer and getting a 2 for 1 deal with a friend for a ride back since most people rent bikes for the ride up. I file away all these little factoids and recommendations for later research.
As the road reaches its highest elevations, the vistas unique to Joshua Tree spring into view. Joshua trees dot the landscape with their long slender trunks covered in their grey-bladed skirts. Rock piles of all sizes and shapes rest on the ground, the size of football stadium, a small house, a skeleton, a beehive appear as the road snakes from one feature to another. Eager hikers happily sit and stand on their tops. We stop for a second short hike to a pass guarded by a huge diamond shape rock. Another boulder perches like a teed-up football. With just the right angle, I can place the football right between the uprights of two Joshua trees. Back at the bikes, I talk to brightly attired woman riding her mountain bike on the road. She quit her job three months ago. She and her husband have RV’d across the country from North Carolina on their way to LA to visit her mom. She recommends an eighteen mile dirt road called the “Geology Tour Road”. She road it on a jeep and says negotiable in two-wheel drive except a spot or two that had some sand. Sand on a motorcycle is one of the most difficult features to learn to ride. The trick is to go faster but that is easier said than done when trying to maintain control of your bike. Chris finally returns, he found a “very cool” slot canyon. He loves this park and vows to return.
It is still mid-afternoon, time to make the long trek home, with half the mileage of the trip still ahead of us. We press on dropping back down in elevation to warmth and the ride home.
11/1/2015. After three weeks in closed bucket with lid on, here is what the inside looks like. Not the most attractive looking thing, but it looks like the mycelium has completely colonized the straw in the bucket. Now, the plan for the next couple of weeks, is to leave the top open, spray water on the mycelium at least twice a day, to try to induce mushrooms to form.
Step One – Find a substrate
Bought a bale of straw for $9. Only need a bucket full of straw for the amount of mycelium that I have. So I can either get more spawn, or use the straw as mulch in the garden. Or set up a Halloween decoration, use it for spawn, and then use if for mulch.
Step Two – Cut up the hay
The hay needs to be cut up so it can be further compacted. Compact straw helps the mycelium grow better as the mycelium doesn’t have to spend lots of energy growing to a distant food source. When I had a lawn mower, I would run the lawn mower over the straw. I don’t have a lawn, so I don’t have a lawn mower anymore. I tried using the food processor, but it doesn’t work because the straw is too loose and doesn’t get sucked into the blades. So I did it the slow way, with scissors, cutting up the big pieces down to two or three inches.
Step Three – Heat
I put the straw and water on the stove and started heating it up. The ideal pastuerization temperature is 145 degrees. Too hot and you sterilize rather than pasteurize. Too cool and you don’t kill the competitive bacteria. I figure I will put the straw in and heat it up rather than trying to overheat the water and guess how much the straw will cool it. If I were mass producing, I might heat up the water and just add to the straw.
Step Four – Spawn
The spawn comes from attending a lecture on mushroom growing. The species is a type of oyster mushroom, though I am not sure what the numbering code is. The spawn has completely overtaken the grain. I think the bags he uses have a patch that allows for some exchange of oxygen.
Step Five – Pasteurization
I’ve poured the water and substrate mix into a food safe bucket obtained from home depot. The plastic (polypropelene?) tolerates the heat well. I push the straw under the water, put a thermometer in the straw, put on the lid, and cover the bucket with a towel for some additional insulation.
The system works pretty well. After about an hour and half, the temperature is still almost 140 degrees. The recommended time is about an hour at 145.
Step Six – Cooling and drying
It is not at all windy outside and I don’t have room in my garage. So I spread the substrate out on a tarp to let it cool down and to let it dry out a bit. Too much moisture inhibits growth almost as much as too little moisture. I leave it out there for about an hour. The heuristic is that it is ready as soon as it is cool to the touch.
Step Seven – Break up the spawn
I put the straw in another bucket filling it nearly to the top. I’ve drilled quarter inch holes into this bucket so the spawn can breath but not too large so anything can get in and eat it. I break up the spawn and spread it out just under the surface of the straw mixing into the top two or three inches of the substrate. I’m told that oyster is so aggressive, that I don’t need to distribute further and evenly.
Step Eight – Let it Grow
Put the lid on and find a nice dark and not too hot place. It will stay there for the next three to four weeks while the mycelium feasts on the straw. When the mycelium has take over, I’ll take the lid off and see if I can get entice the mushrooms to grow by allowing light to reach the mycelium and frequently spraying to keep it moist for maximal crop development. Follow on posts will show progress.
As the Malihini cruises the deep blue ocean searching for floating kelp paddies and hidden fish, iridescent blue flying fish fly out of its way skimming the water with its fins temporarily transformed into rapidly fluttering wings. Aside from our bait, two small dorados, and a couple of yellowtail so small that they are not even reported, these are the only fish we see all day long.
Summer hasn’t left the hills of the Pinnacles just yet. The dry heat pulls the water right out of my skin. An warning of extreme fire hazard fits the browned out landscape. A prairie falcon glides along an escarpment riding the wind without once beating its wings. Annoying flies seem to want to land on our faces if we stand still for more than a few seconds.
Although not quite as stunning as Crater Lake or the Grand Canyon, the geologic features are impressive. The condors sometimes soar on the thermals of the pinnacles but even with field glasses, none are to be found. We climb up a ridge bordered by a multi-colored wall of ores and lichens on one side and a rock dubbed the elephant on another. I dub another feature the boot. A slab with drops of red and yellow rises to the sky. Continue reading “Pinnacles”→
An overcast sky keeps the heat down. A few drops even fall from the sky but the effort quickly fizzles. Each worker’s face and hands disappear into the green leaves looking for good clusters of grapes. The clusters are few, the grapes are small. The late rains have knocked down production everywhere. Last year it was the May heat that caused so many fires that slowed production. Many of the vines are barren, or the grapes are too shrivelled to use. I find a couple of spots with good grapes. I load up my bucket, snipping away at the healthy clusters.
Ironically, the low hanging fruit is harder to get at than the high hanging fruit. I have to squat down, working my old knees, to get the clusters near the ground. When I top off the bucket, I dump it into a bin. As the bin fills, the forklift comes by and carries it back to the house for processing. The migrant crew quickly works through the two vineyards, one Sauvignon Cabernet, one Sauvignon Franc, working from row to row. Our farmers have thoughtfully provided music and the workers make decent company as we work our way through the vineyards. Continue reading “Grapes of Wrath, Revisited”→
I feel the lure of being outdoors living in the rhythms of the day of hot and cold and bright and dark, subject to the patterns of the weather, not in control, but continually adapting and finding my own rhythms leaving the blandness of a completely controlled environment at room temperature with constant light staring at lifeless walls that protect but don’t move, live, or breath. I enjoy actually being in the environment, of smelling it and feeling it. As much as I value abstract thinking and ideas or how my mind can make a grouping of words come to life or empathize with the dancing pixels on a TV screen or lose time in a problem, it doesn’t seem real unless I can touch it. When we lose contact with some one, we say we lose touch. Touch is intimacy, with another person, with a rock, a tree, or a trail. I like to trade the habits of my normal day, not thinking any more that each day is a stepping stone for improvement to the next, but embracing what each day has to offer, each day within its own horizon.
The dust blows in thin ribbons down the trail. A dust devil spins through the chaparral. The cirrus clouds curl and stretch across the blue sky. The salt and pepper speckled granite blocks freckle the green mountains. The shadowed ribs of the mountains drop into the canyon; the valley floor speckled with the flaming leaves of sycamore trees. Off in the distance, in the north face of mountain, lie the whitish lining of the three sisters waterfalls. The surprisingly hot November sun heats the already sun-baked trail.
e less. But 600 yards of that two miles, about a third of a mile, is a vertical drop of at least a couple hundred feet. The worst parts of the trail are a steep powdery soil with difficult purchase, some choosing to just butt slide down the worst parts. Exposed rock faces have to be negotiated in three or four point stances using both feet and hands, I think the very definition of climbing and not hiking. The bottom section, still steep, is more stair-like. A rope dangles from the stump of a tree to negotiate a ten foot drop. Finally, the trail levels out into the canyon studded with sycamores and poison oak. Getting in is the easy part, we have plenty of time to contemplate that same route out.
The road climbs through the desert. Creosote, ocotillo, mojave yucca, smoke trees carpet the basin to the northeast fading into the horizon and distant hills and roll up to the rusty, barren mountains just off to the South of the road. Chris and I take a brief break in the Cholla Cactus garden walking the quarter mile trail. The deceptive, fuzzy look of this cactus gives them the ironic name of “Teddy Bear” cholla. No one dares hug this hostile plant. No sane person would have a garden of these things. The slightest of touches is enough for the spines to catch, snap off, and dig into their unfortunate victim. I’ve had prior experience pulling out the spines from my hand with a pliers leaving behind little pin prick blood splotches that look like a case of the hives.
As the road reaches its highest elevations, the vistas unique to Joshua Tree spring into view. Joshua trees dot the landscape with their long slender trunks covered in their grey-bladed skirts. Rock piles of all sizes and shapes rest on the ground, the size of football stadium, a small house, a skeleton, a beehive appear as the road snakes from one feature to another. Eager hikers happily sit and stand on their tops. We stop for a second short hike to a pass guarded by a huge diamond shape rock. Another boulder perches like a teed-up football. With just the right angle, I can place the football right between the uprights of two Joshua trees. Back at the bikes, I talk to brightly attired woman riding her mountain bike on the road. She quit her job three months ago. She and her husband have RV’d across the country from North Carolina on their way to LA to visit her mom. She recommends an eighteen mile dirt road called the “Geology Tour Road”. She road it on a jeep and says negotiable in two-wheel drive except a spot or two that had some sand. Sand on a motorcycle is one of the most difficult features to learn to ride. The trick is to go faster but that is easier said than done when trying to maintain control of your bike. Chris finally returns, he found a “very cool” slot canyon. He loves this park and vows to return.
e is what the inside looks like. Not the most attractive looking thing, but it looks like the mycelium has completely colonized the straw in the bucket. Now, the plan for the next couple of weeks, is to leave the top open, spray water on the mycelium at least twice a day, to try to induce mushrooms to form.
Although not quite as stunning as Crater Lake or the Grand Canyon, the geologic features are impressive. The condors sometimes soar on the thermals of the pinnacles but even with field glasses, none are to be found. We climb up a ridge bordered by a multi-colored wall of ores and lichens on one side and a rock dubbed the elephant on another. I dub another feature the boot. A slab with drops of red and yellow rises to the sky.
An overcast sky keeps the heat down. A few drops even fall from the sky but the effort quickly fizzles. Each worker’s face and hands disappear into the green leaves looking for good clusters of grapes. The clusters are few, the grapes are small. The late rains have knocked down production everywhere. Last year it was the May heat that caused so many fires that slowed production. Many of the vines are barren, or the grapes are too shrivelled to use. I find a couple of spots with good grapes. I load up my bucket, snipping away at the healthy clusters.
Ironically, the low hanging fruit is harder to get at than the high hanging fruit. I have to squat down, working my old knees, to get the clusters near the ground. When I top off the bucket, I dump it into a bin. As the bin fills, the forklift comes by and carries it back to the house for processing. The migrant crew quickly works through the two vineyards, one Sauvignon Cabernet, one Sauvignon Franc, working from row to row. Our farmers have thoughtfully provided music and the workers make decent company as we work our way through the vineyards. Continue reading “Grapes of Wrath, Revisited”