Diary of a Compost Pile - April 13

Here is another diary entry by guest author Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile, the compost pile built during my Basic Compost Workshop. --- Eric

Dear Diary,

It's me, Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile.

The workshop participants left me in the care of Master Eric. Technically he is still a Master Composter in training, and that means he is still in his nerdy, enthusiastic stage --- I hope he doesn’t get to be too over-solicitous and fussy! I mean, compost happens, and I’m going to do all the work, so there is no need to keep fiddling with me. I suppose it’s nice to have a little attention now and then, but let’s not get obsessive.

For example, the first thing this morning, I saw Master Eric coming at me with a two-foot-long thermometer, and all I could think was, “That thing doesn’t look oral!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

Sure enough, no conversation, no kitchen scraps, no water, just BAM, and there I am with a huge thermometer sticking out of my heap.

A little abrupt, but the truth is that I am warming up to this guy. I was nearly 100 degrees after less than one day! I was actually almost exactly 98.6 degrees --- I felt almost human.


After checking my temperature, Master Eric began fussing around with me. He decided maybe I wasn’t quite as damp as a wrung-out sponge, so he sprinkled some water on me. It’s common for new piles like me that have a lot of dry brown material not to absorb the water sprayed on us when we are first built, especially if we are built in a hurry. We absorb it better after we have sat for awhile.

He also decided to add in the other 15 gallons of medium-sized, unfinished compost material he had sifted out of my predecessor pile, and cap me off with some more leaves he raked up around the garden. That is all brown material, so to balance me out he added a good amount of bagged chicken manure that he had got from the store a while back. Man, I hope I don’t start to stink! I already had a load of Roscoe droppings, and now all this chicken poop too? I don’t know how much more of this shit I can take.

Frankly, with all the disturbance, I sort of lost my decomposure. The whole experience left me a bit cold --- my temperature dropped back to about 80 degrees.

-- FR

Diary of a Compost Pile - April 12

Today I am welcoming a guest author to the blog. I am posting diary entries written by the compost pile built by the participants in my Basic Compost Workshop. Some of these are a few days late, but we'll soon catch up to "real time." It's all yours pile! --- Eric



Dear Diary,

My name is Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile. I am a compost pile, and this is my story…

I was created today by a group of Basic Compost Workshop participants under the instruction of Master Composter Eric Renger.



They built me using the hot-pile or “batch” method, assembling me all at once of alternating layers of browns, water, greens, and air. I feel nicely balanced --- about equal parts greens and browns, damp as a wrung-out sponge.

I contain all kinds of interesting ingredients. My browns are mostly leaves and chipped woody prunings from around the yard and about 15 gallons of large, unfinished compost material sifted out of my predecessor pile, but I also have a little bit of straw, some cardboard, some newspaper, and a few paper napkins. My greens are mostly shredded leafy material from around the yard, but I also have a generous load of vegetable trimmings, about 10 pounds of Starbucks coffee grounds, and a pile of poop from Roscoe the rabbit. I am a very diverse pile!

It’s great to be here, and I hope to get rot down to business. I feel I am going to be a very hot pile! I am very grateful to the workshop participants for building me so nicely, and I’m sure I will be a pile that they can be proud of --- nicely decomposed, and not a bit smelly.

-- FR

Basic Compost Workshop

Sorry I haven't posted anything in such a long time, but I have been very busy preparing the house and garden for the upcoming Bay-Friendly Garden Tour and for my Basic Compost Workshop that I conducted at the house on Saturday, April 12th.

All Master Composters are required to do some kind of outreach project to teach at least 10 people how to compost. I decided to do a workshop on Basic Composting (as opposed to Worm Composting), and I invited friends and family.

I present the workshop. (If you look closely, you can see that my eyes are closed. I was like that the whole way through.)

It was s lot more work getting this workshop ready than I would have expected. I wanted to do a hands-on workshop in which we actually build a pile, so I needed to empty my own full-to-the-top compost bin. In preparation, I sifted the whole cubic yard of compost twice, so that I could show the participants finished compost (material that passes through the 1/4-inch screen), unfinished compost that could be used for mulch (material that passes through the 1/2-inch screen but gets caught in the 1/4-inch screen), and bulky unfinished compost that needs to go back into the pile (material that gets caught in the 1/2-inch screen). That's a lot of sifting.

I point out some of the sifted material.

I also wanted to have enough ingredients ready so that the participants could build a whole cubic yard pile. So, for "browns," I gathered about 20 gallons of leaves and dry brown material from around the yard. And for "greens," I ran about another 20 gallons of moist green material from the yard through my shredder. I already had the 15 gallons of bulky unfinished compost I had sifted out that needed to go back into the new pile, and about 15 gallons of the finer mulch-like material that I could put back in. I also wanted some more exotic materials to show, so I gathered some straw from a feed store, got about 10 pounds of Starbucks coffee grounds, arranged for a gallon of rabbit poop, bought a bag of chicken poop, and saved up about 2-3 gallons of kitchen vegetable scraps. That's a lot of materials.

I prepared samples of amended and unamended soil from the yard, samples of compost from my system and from different commercial sources, and samples of my own mulch and commercial mulch. That's a lot of samples.

Some of us smell the various soil samples while family members appear to mock us for sticking our noses in the compost. It actually smells really good!

The presentation itself took a long time to prepare. I think I actually covered a lot more than what is required for the Master Composter outreach project, but I've seen a few of the really good workshops that the paid employees of the Stopwaste.org organization present to the public, and I wanted to do one that was at least as thorough as those are. I adapted one of their outlines, and I made my own visual aids. It took a few days to put the whole talk together and it runs about 2 hours long. That's a lot of talking.

I think it worked out pretty well. With questions and delays, the presentation went a bit longer than I expected, but people seemed to enjoy most of it, especially the hands-on parts. They all asked a lot of good questions, and I think they all learned something. I had a lot of fun with it. Because it was all friends and family, and we were having it here at the house, we had a barbeque afterwards, which is always a good time.

I demostrate construction of the Biostack composter.

One of the participants adds material to the pile while I appear to kick him in the behind.

One of the participants adds water to the pile.

I add a load of rabbit poop to the pile.

The compost pile we built is doing well. It has heated up nicely and is really starting to cook. I'm sending out e-mail notices to the participants so they can see how their excellent pile is doing. And I will now be welcoming a guest author to this blog --- the pile will be posting periodic diary entries.

Mulch

I ordered 2 cubic yards of black mini-mulch delivered to my driveway from a building supply place. They told me it would come between 9am and 11am. The guy was ringing my doorbell before 8am. I told him it was mulch too early.

I spent the whole day spreading mulch of it around my yard, but there is still so mulch piled in front of my house --- I think I ordered too mulch. Next time I'll know how mulch to buy, and I won't get so mulch.

One good way to figure out how mulch to get is to measure the length and the width of the yard and then decide how deep you want it to be. Then use your mulchification tables.

Man Gets Shot to Avoid Work

Apparently this guy got his frined to shoot him so he didn't have to go in to work.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080301/D8V4D90O0.html

Police: Man Gets Shot to Avoid Work
Feb 29, 10:56 PM (ET)

PASCO, Wash. (AP) -
What happened to faking a cough? Sheriff's detectives in Franklin County said a man had his friend shoot him in the shoulder so he wouldn't have to go to work.

When he first spoke with deputies, Daniel Kuch, of Pasco, told them he'd been the victim of a drive-by shooting while he was out jogging Thursday. But detectives told KONA radio that Kuch later acknowledged that he asked his friend to shoot him so he could get some time off work and avoid an upcoming drug test.

The friend, Kurtis Johnson, of Burbank, has been arrested for investigation of reckless endangerment. Kuch was booked into the county jail and is expected to be charged with false reporting.

Detectives declined to say where Kuch works, or whether he still has a job. It wasn't known if he had obtained a lawyer.

This dumbass has to be disappointed that he didn't get a Darwin Award out of this. With better aim, his "friend" could have killed him outright or at least shot his balls off so we could keep the gene pool clear of his stupidity mutation.

Honestly though, your job has to be pretty crappy if you'd rather be shot than go in to work. And if it is that crappy, who cares if you lose your job over a drug test? I guess I'm just going to make myself crazy if I keep trying to find any logic in this.

Kinds of Worms

Apparently there are millions of kinds of worms. Of those millions of species, about 7000 species are earthworms. And of those, only a few species of earthworms are composting worms that are good for vermicompost. Here’s some info about the various kinds of worms.

Eisenia fetida


These are the best worms for vermicompost. They are often referred to as red wigglers, redworms, brandling worms, or tiger worms. They don’t actually live in soil the way most other earthworms do. They live on the surface of the soil under layers of decaying organic matter. They can consume huge amounts of organic matter, they do not require soil, and they can tolerate some disturbance, which is what makes them ideal for composting. These kinds of worms that live on the surface of the soil are called epigeic.

Aporrectodea caliginosa


These are common earthworms. They live in shallow lateral burrows in the soil that run parallel to the surface. They are not suitable for composting because they must live in the soil and must eat mineral soil, but they are good for gardens because they help aerate the soil and bring organic nutrients into the soil. These kinds of worms that live in shallow lateral burrows in the soil are called endogeic.

Lumbricus terrestris


These are the amazing Nightcrawlers. They live in deep burrows in the soil. They come up to the surface at night to drag decaying organic matter down into their burrows. They are not suitable for composting because they must live in deep soil, and they dislike disturbance, but they are good for gardens because they bring organic matter deep into the soil and provide aeration and drainage. These kinds of worms that live in deep burrows in the soil are called anecic.

Space Slug


These worms live on asteroids in a galaxy far, far away. They eat mostly spaceships. The photo shows the Millennium Falcon spaceship barely escaping a space slug. They are not suitable for composting, except when the compostable material consists primarily of spaceships. These kinds of worms that live in asteroids are called fictional.

Sandworm



These worms are native to the planet Arrakis. They are about a mile long with a mouth 100 yards wide, and they favor dry, desert-like conditions. They are not suitable for composting because of their large size, and the fact that they do not survive on our planet, but they do make an excellent form of transportation. These kinds of worms that live on distant planets are called fantasy.

What do Worms Think About?

In my Master Composter class, I've been learning about vermicomposting, which is the practice of using worms to compost kitchen scraps. Certain kinds of earthworms can live in a small bin and can eat half their weight in kitchen scraps a day. A pound of worms can eat up to a half pound of kitchen waste each day. They produce a very rich, nutrient-packed compost that is great for plants.

These are the kinds of worms that would ordinarily be found in nature living under piles of cow poop, or in deep layers of fallen leaves --- they need a very rich organic environment. They live for about one year in the wild, or maybe as many as four years in a bin. They have both male and female sex organs, so they can reproduce sexually or asexually. And according to one of my class instructors, they have a brain.

A brain! So what do worms think about? My guess is that that they are fairly introspective and spend a lot of time in self-examination --- worms are their own harshest critics.

"Man, I am pathetic! I'm nearly a year old, and I'm still living in the same bin where I hatched! I'm going nowhere! I've got to get out of this place. Just look at me. I eat nothing but garbage and spend most of my time reproducing asexually. There's got to be more to life than this!"

I feel like reassuring him, "Awwwwww, little worm! You do very important work! You process half your own weight in kitchen waste each day, keeping it out of the landfill and turning something worthless into valuable fertilizer for plants! You help to save our natural resources. And you should be happy with your bin! If you were in the wild, you would probably be living in a cow pie, eating crap for lunch instead of nice delicious banana peals and gourmet coffee grounds. And don't be in such a rush, worm! They say the early bird gets the worm, so what's the point in being the early worm? And, yeah, you do spend a lot of time reproducing asexually, but you've got both sets of sexual organs, so why the hell not? You're being too hard on yourself, worm!"

I hope he feels better about himself.

What Separates Us from the Animals

Some say that what separates us from the animals is our huge noggins stuffed full of brains.

Others say it is our opposable thumbs, which allow us to text message on cell phones, that sets us apart.

And there are those who say the difference is that we walk upright, which makes our opposable-thumb-equipped front paws available to hold those cell phones up to our big, fat, brainy heads while we tap dance down the street.

I say the difference mostly comes down to slurping versus lapping. Put a saucer of water in front of any beast, and it will lap it up with its tongue. Lap, lap, lap, lap. But put the same saucer in front of a human being, and (if you don't allow the use of opposable thumbs to just pick it up and drink it) the human will pucker its lips together and slurp. Sluuuuuuurp. Have you ever seen a cat or dog slurp?

Master Composter

I'm taking a class to become a "Master Composter."

I quit my job some time ago and have been out of work for a while, so now when people ask me what I am doing, I say, "I'm working on my Master's."

"What? Are you getting an MBA or something?"

"No, I'm getting an MC --- Master Composter!"

Some people find this amusing and interesting, while others think I should apply myself more diligently to finding a job, but those people do not understand the importance of what I am doing.

A Master Composter not only becomes an expert in making compost, but also masters the art of teaching others how to compost. A Master Composter is something like the Yoda of compost. He is a powerful Jedi of compost, but he also teaches his apprentice to compost as well.

"Master, how shall I turn this pile of compost?"

"The fork must you use."

Pictures of the Moon I took through My Telescope

Here are some pictures of the moon I took through my telescope using my digital camera.







The telescope uses different interchangeable eyepieces that give different magnifications. I bought an adapter that allowed me to attach my digital camera (just a regular Nikon Coolpix) onto an eyepiece. With something like the moon, you can use the camera's zoom to get the image framed the way you want, and then get things focused as well as you can with the telescope's focuser, and then the camera's auto-focus will automatically do the last bit of focusing.

There are a lot of different ways to take pictures through a telescope. Some of them use very specialized equipment. Some people use the digital camera method like I did. And then there are some systems that are based on web cams, and you use a laptop to capture and process the images.

The moon is a very easy thing to image, because it is very bright, so it does not take a long exposure. And it is big and has easily visible features, so it gives your camera something to auto-focus on. Star clusters and distant deep-sky objects are harder because they take very long exposures, and you have to have a system for tracking them very precisely as they move across the sky. For planets, people get good results with web cams and using a process called "stacking" that uses software to "stack" a lot of short exposure images into one single image to build up the details.