Snowy Compost

How about this sign we found at a local store!?! Should buy that one for sure.


And while I'm on the topic here's what one of my composters looked like this morning after a lot of snow!! We are still composting over the winter. At least until both of our containers are full. Then we may switch over to the city's composting/wet waste service.


So what happens in the compost with all this cold and snow? Well not much really depending on the size but when the temperature gets above freezing (as it's expected to a few times this week) things start happening and the internal temperature of the compost heats up again. If it's a larger compost or it's well insulated they have been known to stay at or above 100 degrees F all winter! Even when the temperatures are well below freezing. So don't be discouraged, keep filling those composters up!

And this is the pile of snow between us and our neighbors. I'm glad we have as much room as we do. I'm imagining many other homes close by that won't have anywhere to put all this snow!


One of the great things about a big snow fall is that everyone comes outside. For just a little while all our neighbors were out at the same time shoveling their driveways. And once again my neighbor to the east of us was a hero on our street. He has a snow blower and helped everyone out by removing what the plows left at the end of everyone's driveways. You can see him at work below. Thanks again Rohan!!

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A New Compost

If you check out my drummer Jeremy's blog (aka Normal Rockstar) you'll see some pics of a fine compost pile we started at his place. See how easy it is!! You don't even need a bin. A bin will speed things up and keep critters away if you are composting your kitchen scraps but for yard waste, the pile works just fine too. I should note one correction, we've been composting at home ever since we moved back to Canada so I have had space to do that but I am looking forward to upping my compost capabilities once in our own new house! (only a couple of weeks way!)

For those wondering, Jeremy mentioned that I thought the Fitz Root Beer was my 2nd favorite. He was right and for those of you who asked, first place definitely goes to Henry Weinhards Root Beer. That stuff is amazing! Best on the planet!

GL

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Books & Composting

I figure it's time to get my blog caught up on my reading. In the last couple of weeks I've read three books on composting. Why so much about composting? I'm not sure really except that I find it to be really interesting. Basically you throw a bunch of what most people would call "waste" into a bin of sorts, wait a while, then you have some excellent nutrient rich soil! Isn't that the coolest thing? Well I think it is. I'll never forget the composting system my Grandpa Lavender had in his backyard. He passed away when I was 12 so I never got to the point of fully appreciating his garden and yard and compost but I think I'm starting to now and with the way things are going why not try to reduce and reuse more of our recyclable "waste".

The first book I read was called "Compost: The Natural Way To Make Food For Your Garden".
After completing "Compost" I found a link in the back to a site that looked interesting to me. It was a link to "The Humanure Handbook". I thought, humanure . . . ? you mean somebody has written about composting their poop? That sounds cool. So I promptly went to the site and downloaded the PDF for free of the entire book. Reading a book on the computer wasn't very appealing to me but the book was so interesting to me I couldn't stop. I think the other guys in the band were getting a little tired of my poopy talk. All I was thinking and talking about was compost. Anyway, it's a great read about compost even if you don't plan on composting your own Humanure. The last one I finished was "The Rodale Book Of Composting". Lots of details in this one. A good one to have as reference. Definitely not as fun of a read as the Humanure Handbook.

Then outside of compost I just finished Anne Rice's "Christ The Lord - The Road To Cana". It's the successor of Christ The Lord - Out Of Egypt which I read earlier. A great story of what Christ's life may have been like before His ministry got started.

More books coming. I'm in a reading mood these days!

GL

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