Walrus and the Carpenter

Pulling photos off the camera, noticed Stacey had taken a photo of my oyster tree so here it is in all its alien glory. :)

Basically it's a heavy mil plastic 'bag' made by Stacey by adding a couple of duct-tape seams. The tree is a tomato cage turned upside down with plastic mesh tied across the layers. The bottom is a water tray for a large garden pot and inside are the spawn bags (Plastic shopping bags filled with cardboard and mycelium)

That's it really. Let the spawn sit in the bags for a week or two until they're starting to fruit, then unwrap them and put them back on the shelves and keep the cardboard moist by putting water in the trough and spritzing the cardboard now and then. Easy! :)

Stairs

This photo might not show it too well but the stairs leading up to our house are really broken. Some of the steps are only half wide, others are tilted and they're all uneven and a few have loose rock. In a week or two we're going to start working on replacing them. After the cut are various charcoal drawings I've made as some concept art for how the new stairs might look. The retaining walls need to be replaced too but we'll probably do that next year.

What we want out of new stairs is for them to be solid, level, and evenly spaced but still fit into the landscape but we'd also like to keep cost down. So we're probably going to do a compromise hybrid design with artificial stone supports (like Calstone) with slabs of rock on top of them.

We're also going to do some crazy stuff like... Add landings, and finally some switchbacks. This way the climb up to the house is easier on guests and there are places to stop plus you move through the scenery a little slower. At the major landing(s), we're going to put small interest things (some boulders to sit on, a bird feeder, that sort of thing) to create outdoor spaces to chat that are not the porch (and eventual deck)

A few concept sketches behind the cut.


( And now... Some concept sketches )