Mushroom madness

About 2 weeks ago, Stella got me a mini shiitake mushroom farm from Far West Fungi. I followed the directions but didn't expect much from it. (The directions couldn't be simpler: just cut about a dozen small holes in the plastic bag for air circulation, make sure it doesn't dry out, and let it be.) I was wrong, to say the least. I don't know if it was because of the recent warm weather or what, but the thing pretty much exploded with mushrooms. In fact, Chris exclaimed over the quantity and size of the mushrooms last night and both of us thought they had grown even larger when we checked it this morning. And then, when we got home tonight, I swear they had gotten even bigger. I harvested them all tonight and we're going to be eating mushrooms for a while, I think. If you consider the price of the block and the number of mushrooms you get from a single harvest, it's already a bargain compared to what you pay for fresh shiitakes at the market. And, according to the instruction sheet, if you take good care of the block, you can get 3 or 4 harvests out of it. Crazy!