Uh oh, here’s a first blog post (November 2023 Update)
Hey folks, welcome to my first post in a new monthly blog post series giving updates on my attempt to start my own farming (and farming adjacent) business. I’ll be providing updates on every step of this journey, and I hope it proves interesting and potentially even helpful. I’ll also be showing month to month aerial photos of my home property, where the mushroom growing is beginning while I look for a larger plot.
Above is an aerial view of my property taken on October 1st, 2023. Below is one taken on October 31st. The biggest visible change is the introduction of cardboard in the far backyard behind the garage. This will be the basis for the mushroom growing operation. While the logs don’t particularly care if they are on grass or not, I am very much not a lawn person, so this was a great opportunity to define the mushrooms’ space using the cardboard.
All of the boxes are from my move across the country from Portland, Oregon to here in windy Duluth, Minnesota. One of my goals is to reduce waste as much as possible in this venture. Reusing cardboard is an easy win (and does a lot to help with the quality of soil - more detail can be found in the Lasagna Gardening book by Patricia Lanza) but even choosing to grow mushrooms on logs is tied to that ethos.
As I continue to work on the property, I am also starting to register the business with all of the various agencies, banks, etc that you need in order to, well, operate smoothly as a business.
Registering a business has been bumpier than I would have hoped. I was able to verify that no one was using my ideal name Living Proof in the state of Minnesota. Filling out the official form with the Secretary of State for Minnesota went smoothly, and I started to feel pretty optimistic that I could get everything up and running. Then the IRS happened.
The most important number that a business needs early on is an EIN (Employer Identification Number.) It is what you use for filing taxes, opening a business bank account, and probably more things I haven’t even come across. The IRS has a simple online form to fill out - but as you can probably guess, it wasn’t that simple. I don’t even know why I was rejected multiple times. I never got an explanation, but in short I tried to use the form, and I was told it wasn’t processed correctly.
I decided to try again, but Google’s advertising did what it was supposed to do and sent me to a company that wanted to charge me 300 dollars to wrap the exact same form that the IRS had, while looking as close to the official form as possible. It was pretty gross.
I finally reached out to my local accountant who I am working with on the taxes and such for both myself and the business. He and his team were able to get the IRS sorted out (though still without receiving an explanation as to why things aren’t working) as well as registering me with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.
I guess you can say that I am now properly EIN business.
The final preparations come in the form of equipment and tools. I am so lucky to have a lot of people both in Duluth and around the country who have knowledge or skills I can lean on. After querying those folks I put together a shopping list and went to it.
I am now in possession of a used corded electric chainsaw from Stihl, as well as a battery operated one that has been ordered but is taking some time to arrive. As soon as I knew electric chainsaws were an option I knew I had to have one. One of the core ideas of Living Proof is to electrify as much as possible, and eventually to source my own electricity sustainably. There are potential downsides - the constant torque means that even Kevlar chaps will be less effective at preventing damage than it would be for a gas saw.
Which brings us to safety equipment! I like living, and I like my body to stay more or less in its current condition, so I have purchased Kevlar woven chaps, a face mask (so that I can still wear my glasses) hard hat, neck cover, and heavy duty gloves.
There are a few specialist tools needed for inoculating the logs - a drill bit, a little thumb press (which works sort of like a pipette but for sawdust - pulling it in and then letting you push it out into a small hole) and an attachment to connect the drill bit to my angle grinder. Angle grinders are a lot faster than drills, and since there isn’t a lot of resistance from fresh wood, it is a standard to use the angle grinder for quicker hole creation.
My favorite new equipment/toy is something I’ve wanted for years, especially as Home Depot and local lumber stores became a regular fixture in my weekend. A pickup truck. After talking to many folks, I settled on a used Tacoma. While I eventually want an electric pickup truck, a used functioning vehicle is going to be much better for the environment in the near and mid-term, as well as a lot more affordable. I found one that wasn’t yet listed at a local dealership and bought it the same day I test drove it. I absolutely love it.
Finally there are supplies. Since I am growing mushrooms on logs I need, well, logs. I’ll also be getting my logs from local arborists, who are clearing out trees to make space for larger trees to have a healthier establishment. This means that the wood is local, and was cut down in service of the forest it came from. Whenever I am able to secure some land, continuing to source lumber in this fashion is a very important thing for me, and another local arborist has a program where, so long as you can take three large dumps of wood a year they will drop them off for free, which saves them time and money and provides me with a bounty of wood to choose from - with extra wood being milled into lumber, chipped for certain mushroom varieties, or used in wood stoves in the depths of winter as a last resort.
I also found a regional mushroom producer who is supplying me with mushrooms spawn. They’re a lovely family of 3 producing an absolutely huge volume of mushrooms in their indoor facilities, and are very kindly willing to sell spawn blocks to me :).
And that’s it for this month!
While I don’t know everything that I’ll be updating y’all on next month, I do know I’ll have updates on creating a business plan, looking for land, logo creation, and starting with business banking.
Thank Yous:
I’d like to thank the following folks for helping me with everything I mentioned in this post!
Emma Meersman for suggesting the name Living Proof! As soon as you said it I knew I had to use it.
Martin Ventura for chainsaw and chainsaw safety advice, as well as recommending the Toyota Tacoma as the pickup truck of choice
Christopher Henagin and the Northland SBDC (Small Business Development Center) for patiently working with me on developing a business plan and helping me find resources to get me off the ground
https://northlandsbdc.org/
Strictly Mushrooms for providing shiitake saw dust spawn
https://www.facebook.com/strictlymushrooms/
ASI Accounting in Duluth MN for getting me my EIN and handling other state and federal department registrations
https://www.asifinancialservices.com/
Roger at ACME Tools in Duluth for helping me navigate the weird and wild world of Stihl distribution, and ACME Tools’ franchise/online distribution discrepancies.
https://www.acmetools.com/store-duluth.html
Kate Isles at Miller Hill Subaru for helping make buying a used Tacoma as simple and easy as possible