I've been resisting it for a long time, but I'm thinking I'll break down and compost. My daughter asked me a few years ago if we could do it, to which I responded, "I already have a turtle." "Turtle" is code for anything my family buys or embarks on that ultimately falls on me to care for. And with a possible seventy-year lifespan and an expensive in-captivity lifestyle, our turtle, Natasha, is the most extreme upshot of this phenomenon.
So I told my daughter that composting is meant for someone who has a garden, and we don't have a garden (another turtle) anymore because gardening is a lonely and unrewarding enterprise to have foisted upon you. Then she played the environment card by saying that composting at home for just one year can save global warming gases equivalent to what our washing machine produces in three months. And that was clever of her to say because she knows a comparison like that will leave me feeling both bored and guilty.
So don't be surprised if you see one of those composting things next to my kitchen sink. I can get behind it in the end, because, like my friend Annie Marshall said in her 2nd grade science report, "Of all the things we take for granted, soil is one unsung hero."
Get a solar cone. Super easy and everything can go in it...cheese, bones, meat, annoying neighborhood pets. Pretty much anything.
ReplyDeleteComposting will save the world, Connie. But you may want to bone up on it before embarking because there are good things and bad things (bones, for example) for the pile. I've been practicing for a couple years and I guess word got around the neighborhood. One day not too long ago a fellow from across the street knocked on my door with a dripping bag of composting goodness. As a renter, he had no place to dispose of it, so he figured I could use it. Well, this led to a nightly knock on our front door, another dripping bag of goodness, and one unhappy spouse. To be honest, she had a point. But how to tell this well-meaning guy to stop hauling his garbage to my door every night at 9:30? He provided the answer, turns out. Several days after this had begun, I stepped into my backyard and nearly gagged from the smell. After making sure the odor wasn't coming from my person, I went and opened the lid on my compost bin. Had I been visually inspecting the bags he was giving me, I would have seen that he didn't know much about the process. I found a half-dozen whole, uncooked eggs (fortunately unbroken), chicken bones and skin, vegetables that had been sautéed, and other maggot-attracting items. Oh, did I mention the maggots? Anyway, this gave me an "out" that I quickly took advantage of. I'm once again maggot-free (not to be confused with the Funkadelics' classic 'Maggot Brain') and my pile is cooking.
ReplyDeleteSolar cone aside, only put vegetation type stuff in your compost. When you add meat or animal byproducts you no longer have a compost heap, you have a dumpster.
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