we’re hosting a wedding friday and saturday
so today we cleaned
Sunday, June 3rd, Twin Pond hosted a Mushroom tutorial held by two guys named Ari and Steve.
Ari gave a presentation on foraging, and type of mushrooms that we can find in the area. Filled with inspiration the class took to the trails to forage and spot mushrooms in the forest beside and around our pond.
Good stuff was found, such as
Turkey Tail (medicinal & natural dye mushroom)
Artist Culk (cool to draw on & dry)
Dryad’s Saddle (rad)
after foraging around, Steve taught us how to grow our own mushrooms through growing in mulch piles, or in logs
Steve is in the red. other’s are the folks who came out for the class, people traveled from all over- even New York state
one way to grow your own mushrooms is by drilling holes 4 inches apart in a found log (the log must have been cut within 3 months, our longs we cut 3 weeks ago)- displayed on the left. afterwards, you fill the holes with mycelium, then cover the holes with wax (a mixture of bees wax and candle wax) to keep the mycelium in place-displayed on the right. everyone who joined the class was able to take home their own inoculated log to begin growing their mushrooms. in one year, you soak your log for 24 hours once a week. by next year, you’ll have a log’s full!
Twin Pond on the other hand, got 40 logs.
(katie and jen drilling 2 out of the many)
get ready Vermont, there’s a new mushroom producer in town.
this is Ithamar (in the dark shirt, to the right), another resident at Twin Pond, and his Little House.
he’s building his own cabin, this photo is just the beginning- every moment of the day it gets closer and closer to becoming a finished home.
Friday morning/ afternoon Jennifer, Katie and i visited Jennifer’s friend Kate’s weaving school only 45 minutes away from Twin Pond.
it was a beautiful trip, and we even received from free wool from Kate.
on the second story of a building in the middle of Vermont lies an all-windowed loft packed with beautiful looms. Kate runs a school for whomever would like to learn, and even does Skype tutorials if you hail from out of state.
Kate is not only a weaver and a teacher, but also a dyer. she dyes all of her yarns with both acid dyes as well as natural dyes. she even grows much of her natural dyes in her own garden.
she even led us on a tour of her dye garden
Friday was a big deal
for on this day, i showered. and not only that, i even washed my hair.
for many this is a small feat, but here at Twin Pond, it’s a beautiful science experiment and experience
because get this,
THIS is our shower
(yes, it’s outside)
all of the water is pumped from the pond
and THIS is how it’s heated
there is about 600 feet of piping spiraled around inside of this pile of wood chips, heating 40 gallons of water allowing us to have hot water pumped to our outdoor kitchen and bathroom
it’s amazing
Twin Pond Retreat has BEES
and the grand interns are here to treat them
Jennifer, Dave, and i checked on all of our rows of bees, holding up each tray to check for mites. We have a small mite problem, so we’ll be dabbing a bit of powdered sugar on the trays within the next couple of days. The sugar forces the bees to clean themselves intensely, in doing this, they clean-off mites as well.
check out those beautiful bees!
above is dave, jennifer, and a portion of the hive
all those ladies, hard at work
Jennifer, the creator and owner of Twin Pond Retreat, has many, many, many madder plants that we’ve transplanted recently. She also has a couple madder plants that have been growing for a couple years now.
This is one of our transplants that we planted
notice the bright orange roots
in a couple years, this plant’s roots will be ready to harvest to make a beautiful red dye
A plant that is very similar to the madder plant is Lady’s Bedstraw
a super invasive weed, this plant is everywhere.
but good news, it’s a dye! the bright orange roots can create gorgeous yellows. so while weeding & mulching around the fruit trees, the Twin Pond gals and i saved and harvested all of the large root systems.
future dyeing photos and colors soon to come!
it’s been raining off and on for a bit, but weather doesn’t stop us. Jennifer (mentor/boss/badass/friend) has tons and tons of madder plants in starters that really need to make it into the ground.
we ran and dug frantically to have many planted before the rain came once again.
this photo is of my Twin Pond gals, Jennifer (on the left) and Katie (on the right)
the crew and i use an outdoor kitchen to prepare all of our meals,
it’s down the hill from my tent, beside the gardens and the outdoor shower
incredibly gorgeous at nighttime
THIS IS WHERE I LIVE
dine & shine 