I have always been fascinated and bewildered by mushrooms. From a young age, trees and medicinal plants were my main obsession. Mushrooms felt foreign, complex, other worldly, maybe even dangerous – but definitely fascinating. I followed my love of plants to the Appalachian Mountains, the most biodiverse place in the world next to the Amazon rainforests. I enrolled at the University of North Carolina in Asheville in 1999. In 2003 I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies and had already begun my career as an environmental consultant.
Fifteen years later, a very good friend for whom I am forever grateful, gave me a bottle of mushroom capsules. That bottle changed my life. It contained Hericium erinaceous (Lion’s Mane) and Cordyceps militaris as two of the main ingredients. Hericium what? I had never heard of these things. I got home that night, relaxed in my old rocking chair, and googled Hericium erinaceous. The search took me down a rabbit hole and into medical studies from Japan that involved giving Lions Mane to Alzheimer’s patients. The results of those studies seemed to indicate that Lions Mane could stave off dementia! This was a shocking revelation to me as my dad had recently been diagnosed with dementia. Further down the rabbit hole I found Paul Stamet’s classic work, How to Grow Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms. All other projects went out the window (sorry Annie) as I began constructing a lab/clean room in the little old smokehouse behind the dilapidated farm house we had just bought. The following year, my first Lion’s Mane fruited.
If you’re wondering where the name Maddyland came from, I’ll tell you. In 2010, my wife Annie and I were renting a tiny apartment in North Asheville - and I mean tiny. We searched high and low until we found a 600-square foot cabin at the edge of downtown Marshall for rent, and jumped on it. It was huge! Not really but it was in the sense that we were suddenly surrounded by the forest. Naturally, we then adopted a pound puppy with fluffy ears and white paws and named her Maddy.
That little cabin on a creek was a wonderful place to live, but we didn’t own it, and the landlord wasn’t selling. We wanted our own place. So for what seemed like years, we searched and we searched, got lost, run off, and bug bit. Almost every weekend, the three of us loaded into the car and we’d say, “let’s go find Maddy land.” Maddy loved to ride with her head out of the window, ears flapping in the wind. And she loved chasing deer on our excursions.
One fateful day in October 2015, we found an old dairy farm in Marshall with a dilapidated, hundred year old farmhouse, a two story smokehouse, a couple of pallet shacks, a pig sty, a chicken coop, one too many enormous black snakes, and a masonry building that had served as the dairy’s milking parlor. Naturally, we named our property Maddyland. The milk parlor became the cornerstone of Maddyland Mushrooms. It’s where the magic happens.
Maddy passed a couple of years ago. It broke our hearts. She was a good dog. I’ll always be grateful for the lessons she taught me and for leading us to our land, and to what has become my passion. My dad is still alive and well - hell yeah! He is a good dad. I think we owe that to the Lion’s Mane in large part. And we are still on the farm cultivating medicinal and gourmet mushrooms with organic substrates, spring water, sunlight, a sense of humor, and love.
I love to talk with just about anyone about anything, except politics. So drop me a line if you want and not only will it be likely to improve my day, but I will almost certainly respond in kind. Subject doesn’t matter! Let’s talk about picking up and eating living dragons if that’s your thing…
-Tim
