Day-time temperatures staying above 40 F --- check.

Beeswax hunted down (from a neighbor who keeps bees) --- check.

Time to innoculate the shiitake logs!  We actually only innoculated about a third of the year's logs Thursday since it's very wrist intensive work.  First, drilling holes in a diamond pattern.

Next, hammering in the shiitake plugs so that they sit just below the bark surface.  As instructed, we'd kept the plugs moist in their bag in the fridge, and as I pounded them into the log, liquid bubbled up out of the holes.

Third, melting beeswax and painting it carefully over each shiitake plug.  It's essential that the logs be kept moist and also free of wild fungi --- plugging up the holes with beeswax helps with both.  (Other types of wax are too brittle and tend to flake off.)  This works best as a two person job, with one person turning the log and the other painting so that the wax goes on quickly and stays hot.

Finally, labelling the logs.  The first year, we labelled the ends with sharpies, and the numbers became illegible in short order.  This year, we screwed little pieces of old flashing into the ends and wrote the numbers on the metal tags, pressing down hard so that the indentation will remain even if the ink washes off.

We'll poke at the rest of the logs over the next couple of days.  Innoculating shiitake logs is a joy in the type of weather we've been having, so I'll be looking forward to it!