Golden Oyster Mushrooms

Yesterday, I had the privilege of meeting Jen from The Mushroomery out of Lebanon, Oregon at the First Annual Next Step Recycled Arts Fair. To say that Jen is passionate about mushrooms may be some what of an understatement. She had bunches of gorgeous mushrooms for sale at very reasonable prices. I was admiring them with wonder and a fair amount of delight until I spied a curious bag filled with - well I couldn't tell what was in the bag. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was a grow at home mushroom kit! So for $15, I bought my darling N. a Golden Oyster Mushroom kit.

To keep our mushrooms happy and growing, we have to mist the outside of the bag with water a few times daily to maintain the humidity inside the bag. It is important to keep the bag in a place that gets lots (about 8 hours) of indirect sunlight. We put it in a corner of our kitchen. They also need abundant oxygen and a temperature of 65 - 85 degrees F. We should be able to get 3 maybe 4 harvests out of the bag. After that, the contents of the bag can be emptied into the yard and next year should bring a whole new crop. Exciting!

Oyster mushrooms have surprising nutritional value, and are high in protein and B vitamins among other things. I promise to keep you updated as our mushrooms grow!

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Have you heard about Carol?

She is shouting from her Fabric of Life boutique rooftop about issues that are important to her.
Carol Schillios has gone up on the roof to live in a tent in Edmonds, Washington until she raises 1 Million Dollars for the Fabric of Life Foundation. Carol created the foundation to help young women in developing countries go from beggar to businesswomen. She promises that every dollar given to the 501(c)3 Fabric of Life Foundation will go to support women, children and their communities both in developing countries and in the U.S. All she is asking for is $1 from 1 million people.

Carol lists 3 reasons for her relocation.

1. To inspire action and celebrate what people are doing to make a difference in their world.
2. To create bridges of understanding through learning about our global community.
3. To raise $1 million; $1 at a time from 1 million people for the Fabric of Life Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization supporting cooperative development projects around the world.

Donate

You can follow along:

Carol is on Twitter as @schillios.

She’s also on Facebook.

Read Carol's Blog Up On The Roof With Carol 

via http://www.itsjustbrent.com/ photo via Up On The Roof With Carol 

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On the McKenzie River with Zeke

First, apologies to all for taking an extended unannounced break from Pocket Full of Stones. Life happened.

You may have noticed that I've been quite busy launching and building That's So Northwest - Northwest Community CU's blog and Social Media extravaganza. If you haven't popped in over there, it's worth the click. Lots of fun, variety and a heck of a great group of people speaking their peace if I do say so myself. 

Now for what I really want to talk about. One of my all time favorite topics - the sweetest, smartest of dogs, Zeke. He is NOT spoiled.
This past weekend, we took a short jaunt to the McKenzie River with Zeke, and our new video enabled iPhones (say YES! to on phone video editing). Now I get to regale you all with pics AND video. Woot! 


Zeke loves the water. Without doubt, that is an under statement. In the dead of winter, he will beg us to break through the inches thick ice in his kiddie pool so that he can submerge himself in it's frigid bliss. In the snow and pouring rain he will lay in the river with just the holes of his nose and his eye's visible for so long that many people ask us if he is ok and stare at us as if we are somehow abusing him. We aren't - I promise.

 
For hours on end, Zeke will happily swim after his tennis ball in most any body of water ever eager to meet nearly any challenge to retrieve his ball and do it all over again. I've witnessed that dog create his personal version of Groundhog's Day over and over again in utter ball-retrieving-glee. Zeke learned to swim in the McKenzie River. In fact the video below is shot at the very spot on the river where he journeyed his first rapid and I thought I would have a heart attack. He was totally fine. It took me a little long, but I too made it through. He is a good judge of water. If he is uncomfortable with the water, he flat won't get in, even if we do. What's that say about us? If the current is too swift, Zeke wisely whimpers from shore as he donates yet another tennis ball to the river.  

Now on with the show. Here is Zeke, fishing for river rock on the McKenzie River.

And a little footage of the tennis ball action, just because I talked about it so darn much.
We are working on our video technique. That's all I have to say about that.

All photo's and video in this post are courtesy of my darling N. and his iPhone. He has been waiting for me to post this since this past Sunday. Check. Finally!

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