Seasons Turn, Turn... and So Does Compost
Jun. 11th, 2020 09:52 am I am sitting down to write this to you a little later than usual during the day. I just spent the morning, while it was cool and before the supposed thunderstorms roll back in, turning the compost pile.
Image: a bunch of dirt. I am uncertain what I thought you'd see here? "Black gold" as some gardeners call compost?
I once took a master gardener class in composting. I tell you this because I am objectively fairly terrible at composting. I do what I believe experts call "the slow method," which is to say: nothing. Or rather, next to nothing. I put together these lovely bins which actually work surprisingly well. After all, here we are, years later, and I can, in fact, still unclip the little holders keeping the fence together and swing open a "gate" to get at the dirt.
One of the few things I do, however, is periodically flip the compost and move it from one bin to another.
And add to it, of course. In that lovely dark compost pictured above is all my yard waste, kitchen scraps, and... a sock, a couple of Legos, and weird plastic bits of garbage that find their way in due to living in a busy urban area. I honestly think one of my favorite things of turning compost is discovering what ended up in there accidentally. One year, I found a pair of my glasses.
Oddly, that was fun. Tiring, but weirdly rewarding, as I shoved out all of the super dark dirt and mulched it around my various gardens. Surprisingly, there wasn't a ton, so I spread some in the O-Jizo-sama garden (aka the established shade garden) because it has always had pretty poor soil. Every year, it seems to sink below the line of my lawn, the plants are so hungry for nutrients. The other place I amended the soil was where my jack-in-the-pulpit and the baby jacks are kind of struggling. Hopefully, this will help? I'm also making plans for a trip to the garden store to get some other soil amendment stuffs.
So there you go. Several paragraphs and a photo about DIRT.
We are still waiting on the results of Mason's COVID test. Hopefully, we will hear today. The phone rang just now and I jumped up to get it thinking that was it, but for some weird reason I couldn't actually pick up the phone (this is our ancient landline.) I'm sure Mason gave his cell phone number to the health care workers, anyway. I am annoyed in general the extent to which telemarketers have taken advantage of the fact that we all kind of have to pick-up unknown calls these days, since it can be test results or an tele-appointment or, in our case, sometimes Mason's teachers making a checking-in call.
Of course, that last one isn't a concern any more. As of Tuesday, we have a high school senior (final year before college/university for my friends in the rest of the world) in the house. Whoo!
Other things going on in my life include the fact that I will probably spend some time this evening baking cookies, because I signed up for a Zoom Pride event: Drag Queen Cookie Decorating. Apparently, on Friday night, we are making drag queen cookies, not, alas, being taught to bake cookies BY drag queens, but whatever. Out Front Minnesota has sent me a number of Pride Event notifications and, while I almost never went to a lot of Pride events now that it's become so commercialized, I am super down for queer baking.
The other thing is that![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rachelmanija put out a call for submissions for her charity anthology (https://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2377903.html) to benefit Outright Action International and I have answered. In fact, I wrote about 2,000 words already so I should have zero problem making the October 1 deadline. Although, as is my custom these days, I have informed Mason that I have a deadline, so that he can start nagging me about whether or not I am writing. I'm actually having way too much for with this and that's kind of new? I have really been struggling to write ANYTHING during the pandemic/riots and so I guess that's a big THANK YOU to Rachel for inspiring me.
How have y'all been?
Image: a bunch of dirt. I am uncertain what I thought you'd see here? "Black gold" as some gardeners call compost?
I once took a master gardener class in composting. I tell you this because I am objectively fairly terrible at composting. I do what I believe experts call "the slow method," which is to say: nothing. Or rather, next to nothing. I put together these lovely bins which actually work surprisingly well. After all, here we are, years later, and I can, in fact, still unclip the little holders keeping the fence together and swing open a "gate" to get at the dirt.
One of the few things I do, however, is periodically flip the compost and move it from one bin to another.
And add to it, of course. In that lovely dark compost pictured above is all my yard waste, kitchen scraps, and... a sock, a couple of Legos, and weird plastic bits of garbage that find their way in due to living in a busy urban area. I honestly think one of my favorite things of turning compost is discovering what ended up in there accidentally. One year, I found a pair of my glasses.
Oddly, that was fun. Tiring, but weirdly rewarding, as I shoved out all of the super dark dirt and mulched it around my various gardens. Surprisingly, there wasn't a ton, so I spread some in the O-Jizo-sama garden (aka the established shade garden) because it has always had pretty poor soil. Every year, it seems to sink below the line of my lawn, the plants are so hungry for nutrients. The other place I amended the soil was where my jack-in-the-pulpit and the baby jacks are kind of struggling. Hopefully, this will help? I'm also making plans for a trip to the garden store to get some other soil amendment stuffs.
So there you go. Several paragraphs and a photo about DIRT.
We are still waiting on the results of Mason's COVID test. Hopefully, we will hear today. The phone rang just now and I jumped up to get it thinking that was it, but for some weird reason I couldn't actually pick up the phone (this is our ancient landline.) I'm sure Mason gave his cell phone number to the health care workers, anyway. I am annoyed in general the extent to which telemarketers have taken advantage of the fact that we all kind of have to pick-up unknown calls these days, since it can be test results or an tele-appointment or, in our case, sometimes Mason's teachers making a checking-in call.
Of course, that last one isn't a concern any more. As of Tuesday, we have a high school senior (final year before college/university for my friends in the rest of the world) in the house. Whoo!
Other things going on in my life include the fact that I will probably spend some time this evening baking cookies, because I signed up for a Zoom Pride event: Drag Queen Cookie Decorating. Apparently, on Friday night, we are making drag queen cookies, not, alas, being taught to bake cookies BY drag queens, but whatever. Out Front Minnesota has sent me a number of Pride Event notifications and, while I almost never went to a lot of Pride events now that it's become so commercialized, I am super down for queer baking.
The other thing is that
rachelmanija put out a call for submissions for her charity anthology (https://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2377903.html) to benefit Outright Action International and I have answered. In fact, I wrote about 2,000 words already so I should have zero problem making the October 1 deadline. Although, as is my custom these days, I have informed Mason that I have a deadline, so that he can start nagging me about whether or not I am writing. I'm actually having way too much for with this and that's kind of new? I have really been struggling to write ANYTHING during the pandemic/riots and so I guess that's a big THANK YOU to Rachel for inspiring me.How have y'all been?