About: I am a paper engineer, writer, maker and chemist wannabe. In addition to pop-up cards I design and build furniture, lights, costumes or whatever I happen to need at the time. Lipstick, a mixing studio, all-pur…

Back in 2012, when hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast, I wondered how to use some of the devastation, how to make something with all the broken trees. I don't have a wood shop or even a car, but it occurred to me it might be easy to inoculate the lumber with mushroom spawn. You don't need a lot of space to grow mushrooms: any shady backyard or alleyway will work. You might even be able to grow them indoors, but you will need to put the logs where you can hose them down.

As with most projects it turned out to be a bit more complicated than I had anticipated. After dragging a few limbs home, I realized that I needed thicker branches, and that I had the wrong type of wood. Most of the downed trees in my neighborhood were Honey Locust, Bradford Pear or London Plane, but Oak is the best type for most tree mushrooms.

To make a long story short, a generous arborist at the Botanic Garden provided me with a half dozen huge oak logs, and a very kind motorized neighbor and fellow mycological enthusiast helped me lug them home.

It was the beginning of a very slow adventure.