It is May, and it feels like the world went from 0 to 100MPH overnight. The ferns are popping up, the songbirds are swarming around my neighbors’ bird feeders, and most importantly for me, nurseries are ready for their starter plants to be picked up.

Hey folks, apologies for a very late April post. As I alluded to last month, I’ve been dealing with some mental and physical health issues and as such fell behind on this. Thank you so much to Tony Stein (shouted out at the end too, of course) for helping me get mushroom preparation done despite that so that I could build up momentum again. May’s post will be scheduled for the 17th!

It’s been a quieter month, in Duluth. A foot and a half of snow gave me time to take a step back to start planning for my plantings for the food forest, but the actual work was all in further mushroom propagation, and some unfortunate damage to my mushrooms towers.

It’s an early spring in the Duluth area! We’ve had a number of days in the 40’s, and while winter still stops by from time to time to remind us it’s always nearby, it is nevertheless time to start preparing for my first crop.

This month’s post discusses some of the work that is underway on the food production and land procurement fronts, and features the unveiling of the official logo for Living Proof LLC.

You also might see some changes to this blog. For one thing, I am dropping the month to month overhead shots of my home property in favor of photos related to the work I am actually doing.I’ll keep taking those shots, but I’ll summarize them semi-annually or annually depending on what feels most appropriate. I’ll also start experimenting with supplemental materials for those interested in what I am watching/reading as I continue this journey.

We made it to February 2024! Things have slowed down as I mostly wait for my house in Portland to be able to be sold so I have more financing available.

But I have some updates on the property I hope to buy here in the city of Duluth and some of the cool things I’ve been learning while putting together the proposal to the city planning department about what I’d do with the land if I bought it.

Strangely enough 2024 is here, and it is time for another update!

This has been a pretty crazy month, even though I’ve done very little mushroom log preparation.

Hey folks!

It’s my second update on trying to start Living Proof, my hospitality, agriculture, and other yet-to-be-defined-things business. I realized soon after sharing my November 2023 update that I hadn’t actually explained what Living Proof is about, so I’d like to start this month’s post going over some of that.

I cover some of this in my About Me section, but here’s my elevator pitch for Living Proof:

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.