Compost

Riley is not feeling well.  Elevated numbers for his pancreas and liver.  Nausea.  He is taking his medicines and sleeping and is still the happy dog he always is.  Happy to be close by his "people".
Still happy to run off and investigate whatever stinky things the neighbors have tossed into their compost pile.  And they seem to always be tossing terrible things into the compost pile.

Today I have a plan.  I have garlic to plant.  I also have to "heel in" my juvenile grasses into the garden for the winter.  I grew Elijah Blue Grass from seeds last winter in the milk jug experiment. They started out as just a thread of blue green.  A blade of "grass". Now, after two transplanting they are about 3 inches tall and in small clumps.  12.  By next year they should be large enough to go into the landscape border.  But this winter they will be in the vegetable garden.

I also have to add some fertilizer to the garden.  I raked leaves (in the dark) the last time I was out there--before it rained.  Pulled up the pepper plants.  Pulled weeds.  The compost bins are packed. All three of them.  Like money in the bank.  Future Dirt.

My compost piles are full of chopped leaves combined with the last grass clippings.  G has to cut the front lawn once more so we'll collect that grass and add it to the piles.  I also have two piles of leaves by the side of the driveway--composting into leaf mold.  Compost.  It takes awhile. I can wait.

All Winter (and actually 365 days a year) I collect "compostables" in a 2 gallon soup pot on the counter.  Kleenex, paper towels, coffee grounds and filters, the dregs of cereal containers, orange peels, apple cores, vegetable scraps, egg shells--- the container is emptied into the bins at least twice a week.  That's about 5 pounds of wet green waste each time.  Dog hair and dryer lint goes in as well.
The leaves falling off the three Ficus Trees in the kitchen (a change in light and Ficus have to drop all their leaves in a sort of hissy fit) also get swept up into the compost bucket.  Junk mail is shredded and put into the compost.  Cardboard from cereal boxes is opened up and laid flat or if I have time--torn into pieces first.  Worms love cardboard.

We recycle what we can't compost.  Once a month or so we put out a small bag for the "garbage" men.  Things that can't be recycled or composted.  Those bags cost us money--so we wait to make sure they are completely full before setting them out.

But no matter how hard I try there is still too much here in the house.  Time to walk around with a big bag or a box and fill it to take to Goodwill.  My son often laments not teaching us how to use eBay. Some of what we have and don't need is actually valuable--to someone else.