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Journal (The Ember Update)

Thursday, August 19

Shitake Log

Back in May(-ish) Kevin and I happened across a "Wine and Mushroom" festival in Front Royal, VA. The only presence of mushrooms I saw was a guy selling Shitake grow plugs for logs, and logs pre-plugged, which is what I bought.

The idea is you soak the log for 24 hours, set it in a shady spot and wait. The first time I soaked the log only one of the plugs grew two mushrooms, but I wasn't to be discouraged. The idea is you soak every three weeks until growth occurs, and then again six weeks after each harvest. The log will supposedly produce for some time, possibly a year or longer.

I got around to doing a second soak only last week, and now, look what I've got! I'll have to harvest soon (those first two mushrooms had dried out by the time I thought to pluck them).

Toes

As we were unloading in the dark at the cabin last Friday, I managed to trip and fall on the steps to the front door, bruising myself and hurting the toes on my right foot. I have a high pain threshold, but my foot was in such shock that I even shed a few tears. But it subsided after some time; nothing seemed to be broken and I didn't notice any immediate swelling. I probably should have iced it, but I didn't.

Then Monday, Kevin and I went to Yoga class (his first, he did great) and we went through intensive Sun Salutations, probably 20 of them (they're especially toe-demanding), and some one-leg standing poses, and I kept thinking, this isn't good for my foot. I was right, because since Tuesday morning my big toe and middle toe have been swollen and won't bend like the others. I obviously aggravated the problem.

I don't know if my toes are broken or badly sprained or just what, but I'm limping around, or at least trying to walk gingerly. I just made a Tuesday appointment for the doctor. I can always cancel if I'm better (I hope I hope), but this concerns me as we're leaving for Burning Man in just over a week. At Burning Man we'll be riding bicycles for miles across the Playa every day.

Icing my foot hasn't seemed to help, but I'll continue that, keep it elevated, and try not to walk too much. Ugh.

Wednesday, August 11

I cleaned my car up … it's not so bad so I'm saving the $250 deductible. And maybe someday I'll go the art car route.

Jerry Garcia's Birthday Bash

This past weekend was devoted to attending the Jerry Garcia Birthday Bash Music Festival and Campout, held at Sunshine Daydream Festival Park in West Virginia.

In essence, thousands of hippies descended on Trip and Emily's farm for four days of jam bands, good family and higher consciousness. I felt like I'd stepped back into the 1960's … it was a magical, wonderful weekend.

(In case you're wondering, the bands included three days of The String Cheese Incident, plus Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Yonder Mountain String Band, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, Derek Trucks Band, Railroad Earth, Davisson Brothers Band, The Ordinary Way, The Shantee, New Monsoon, Garaj Mahal, Zen, Baked Fresh Daily [no show, bus problems], Toni Brown Band, Mood Cultivation Project, and Poogie Bell Band. I've never heard so many banjos!)

Kevin and I spent Wednesday evening at the cabin, left early the next morning and were establishing our camp at SSDD by 10:30 am. No cell phone, tv or radio access (hence no news), plus the cool mountain air and mellow pace put me in a great mood for the duration. Kevin's friend Jon joined us Friday and ended up pitching his enormous tent right next door.

And while I'm on the subject of tents, what is this weirdly shaped, four-door tent (at right)? A bathroom? For meditating? For a dog?

There's no doubt … Kevin knows how to do festivals right. He starts by making the best camp (we were told this by numerous visitors throughout the weekend). Five carpets lined our tent / storage / shade structure area, candles dotted the grass and hung from branches, and the coffee table provided a place to hang.

We brought the fire pit grill — a big improvement according to Kev — which kept our camp cozy at night and provided us with several hot meals, including fluffy pancakes, pork chops, dogs, eggs and bacon, roasted potatoes and onions, and beans and pepperoni. The eggs were the only unwitting burn victims … but that was the first day, and I think I have the cooking-by-campfire rudiments pretty well down now.

By the second morning all of the remaining open space around us was filled with even more tents (not pictured). Our neighbors were Steve and (girlfriend), Chris, Makita and Kyle, Bruce, the couple in the tiny kids tent (wasn't hard to tell when they were occupied), the couple from Spicy Pizza, etc. We visited with many folks, including Courtney (who gave us beads made from fossilized crinoids, prehistoric sea grasses in the midwest) and Jeremy and their crazy friends, pierced James (who now seems to be calling us Mr. and Mrs. Fun) and wife Theresa, and so forth. The only new person I remembered to photograph was Courtney.

Kevin spent some time preparing to sell customized boxes at SSDD. He buys the best boxes from cigar shops, replaces some clasps, adds stickers and sometimes mirrors, and sells or trades the finished boxes at festivals. I brought along some Stoner Fluxx decks and a case of Busted DVDs. But wouldn'tcha know it … hippies don't have any money! After handing out about 150 SFluxx stickers, I sold 6 decks and 3 DVDs in the entire time we pseudo-vended (walked our goods around the campground or spread out next to pierced James' glass work). Kevin had better luck, parting with about half his 30-ish boxes.

A couple forays took us away from SSDD, mainly for additional cooking ingredients and firewood. The Lenox country store had a fabulous old scale, freshly authorized for legal trade. We bought some really nice seasoned hardwood from the cashier woman's son for $5, and then followed her directions to acquire garden produce at the Metheney farm.

I'm trying to figure out why the weekend was so especially magical. I think it had to do with the beautiful, usually mellow music which clearly — yet gently — reached us from the stage (we camped as far away as possible), the peaceful ambiance (even with the bands and people it was still surprisingly quiet), the friendly and generous camaraderie, the fireworks, the recreation, the not-too-frequent animalistic whooping (which took on an unexpectedly and delightfully acceptable form of sweeping from one end of the farm to the other), the lovely weather, and all the little intangibles of being happy and having everything go easily and well.

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