Tom and I attended the UNC Charlotte Garden Symposium in January.  One of Tom's sessions was “Landscaping with Fungi: Mushrooms as Environmental Multi Tools”.  He purchased 
Tradd Cotter's book, and that is how our mushroom adventure began.  

The gorgeous willow oak in the upper garden was needing some attention in the way of balancing out the canopy.  Some large limbs were cut, and since hardwood is what is needed to grow most mushrooms, those are the limbs we used.  Tom ordered five different spores from Tradd, and got started.

First he drilled many, many holes in the logs, pounded in the plug spawns with a mallet, and then painted the plugs with melted wax.  
The logs are stacked in an area in the upper garden.  The colonization phase can take six to ten months, depending on the type of wood, temperatures, and spawn spacing.  Now we are in the wait and see mode.  Time will tell!

Beginning the building of our mushroom farm

Tom begins the inoculation process.  

Hammering in plug spawns

Painting the plugs with wax

Stachyurus praecox is not a pretty shrub at all ... until it blooms in late winter and then it definitely makes up for being so nondescript most of the year. 

For the past several years I had added another woodland poppy to a bed in the upper garden.  They are expensive, so it's only been one, or maybe two, a year.   The seeds pods are quite ornamental. 

My squirrel trapping (with a trip to the park) this spring started out pretty well with nine trappings so far; however, I have run into a bit of a problem.  "Skippy," our collective name for chipmunks, has discovered the trap.  He is going inside the trap and eating all of the bait (I use raw peanut pieces).  Skippy isn't big enough to trip the trap, so he happily goes along his way leaving the trap empty for the squirrels who now have no interest without the bait.  

I do remember having this same trouble last year with Skippy, so I tried smearing peanut butter inside the trap.  I had moderate success with the peanut butter, and Skippy didn't seem to care for it.  By far, using the raw peanut pieces works better, but I will give the peanut butter a try again this year.  

On a humorous note from last year's trapping ... 
One morning I looked out our window to see Skippy STUCK between the wires of the cage!  His jaws were so packed and he had gotten himself wedged along the side of the trap.  I guess he had forgotten that there is a big opening at the entrance of the trap he could have used to get out. Anyway, I went outside and gave him a BIG PUSH through the wires, and off he went.  

"Kiwi," our Cesky Terrier, has earned a new name ... KILLER!  The other afternoon, Kiwi caught a SQUIRREL!!  I suppose she figured I wasn't having enough success with my squirrel hunting, and she would help me.  I chased her around the yard trying to take the squirrel from her, but she was having a big time shaking the poor thing to death.  I finally was able to corner Kiwi, and get the squirrel from her, but sadly, it was already dead.  I had a little ceremony for the squirrel and buried her in the garden.  I know Kiwi had planned to eat the poor thing and then come inside an throw it up!

"Kiwi" ... alias KILLER!