Shiitake

Taking a break from the travel logs for the time being I am going to tell you about what I did last Sunday. When I told some of my friends I was going into the mountains to plant mushrooms eyebrows were raised, bad jokes were made as to the legality of my actions. "Planting mushrooms! Are you sure that's legal? Ha ha ha..." My friends are smart asses. On a mountain in the area of Nishi Yamamoto here in Hiroshima there is a community group who try and promote green activities for the area. One of these was planting shiitake mushrooms and my friend kindly invited me along to join her, her boyfriend and friend.

So how does one go about planting shiitake mushrooms I hear nobody ask? Well I'll tell you. After paying my ¥500 I was handed a chopstick with a number on it. This number indicated the two logs I was to pick out from the bundle. We took our logs over to the volunteers who held them in place while we drilled twenty staggered holes into them on four sides. Then we took pared down shittake fungus and hammered it into the holes. Job done. Seriously, that was it. The logs were then propped up under trees where they will sit until next Autumn when the shiitake will begin to grow and can be picked. 

My hair attempting to be a mushroom too. (Picture taken by Kanade)

There was a see-saw for the kids so naturally we had to play on it (Picture taken by Kanade)

A log from last year with some tasty goodness growing on it

Then when our planting was done we took a little stroll through winding paths up a hill and to a little park area where we sat and ate delicious bento that Kanade had prepared. Hurray for shiitake Sunday!

Feast your eyes on that deliciousness