Friends of Fungi - Menla Spring Weekend Retreat

Fungi Walks, Indoor & Outdoor Cultivation, & Medicinal Workshops - Phoenicia, NY
06/14/2025
FRIDAY- SUNDAY
MENLA RESORT & SPA

Through fun, hands-on activities learn low tech methods to cultivate gourmet and medicinal mushrooms, identify and harvest wild mushrooms, and make mushroom medicines.

Participants will create/inoculate and take home:

- Indoor Oyster mushroom grow kit
- Outdoor Wine-cap Mushroom Starter
- Chaga tincture
- Foraging hand lens and Mushroom journal
- Deeper connection with fungi, nature, self, and friends

From the largest living organism on the planet to the creation of soil, fungi play an essential role in sustaining life on earth. They have been recycling and helping to heal the planet for millennia.  Humans are learning to pair with fungi to improve our lives with the food and medicines this extraordinary kingdom/queendom has to offer.

Come explore the interesting and ancient relationship fungi have with our world and our culture. Learn about fungi and mushrooms in history and as we currently know them. Discussions will include: biology and ecology of fungi, mushrooms as food and medicine, how fungal allies can create resilience in our agriculture and communities, gardening with mushrooms, and mushrooms to heal the planet.

 

Catskill Fungi professional guides, presenters, and private-walk leaders:

Aubrey Carter, Erwin Karl, Gabriela D'Elia, and John Michelotti

Special Guest: Delta Hunter - Psilocybin specialist

Schedule

Friday, June 7

3 - 6 pm Check-in

6 - 7 pm Dinner

7:30 pm Evening Program Intro and Welcome Circle

Evening Presentation: Mushrooms 101 – Biology and Ecology of Fungi - John

Saturday, June 8

8 - 9 am Breakfast

9:30 am Characteristics to Identify Mushrooms

10 am Pick up Bag Lunch for picnic in the forest

10 am - 1:30 pm Extended Mushroom Identification Walk: Finding Food and Medicine

1:30pm - 2:30 pm Break

2:30 - 4 pm Afternoon Program 1

Indoor Inoculation: Oysters on Sawdust. Grow your own oyster kit

Outdoor Inoculation: Wine-cap in Wood chips & Slurry 

4 - 4:30 pm - Break

4:30 - 6 pm - Afternoon Program 2 

Kombucha, fermentation, & growing beneficial mycobiomes

Medicinal Mushrooms: Health for the Body, Mind, and Planet

Chaga Tincture making workshop

6 - 7 pm - Dinner

7:30 - 9 pm - Evening Program

Foraged Mushroom Collection Review

Special Guest: Delta Hunter - Meditation Circle & Heart Integration

9 pm - Optional: open discussion at fire pit. Music Jam (bring instruments)

Sunday, June 9

7 - 11 am Check-out of Rooms

8 - 9 am Breakfast

9:30 - 11:30 am Morning Program

Mushroom Walk

Mushroom Cooking Class & Tasting

Closing Circle12:30 - 1:30 pm Lunch and Departure

*Please note that schedule is subject to change.