The Universe Inside My Trash

A simple compost tumbler

In the 70's, my mom had a compost heap. All of our kitchen refuse - vegetable scraps, leftovers, moldy refrigerator items - went on the heap, under a blanket of newspapers. When she started it, it only took a few days for the pile to become roaring hot, as a strange, unseen, microbial reactor started up under the unfolded pages of The Daily Local News.

Now I have my own composter, although I'm not brave enough to simply do a heap of stuff under a paper. I use a Tumbler, which is a large plastic barrel suspended in its middle. You unscrew the lid, dumpt the stuff in, and "tumble" it around so the bottom side is up. It's like dancing trash.

Speaking of trash, between my compost tumbler and recycling, we have very little in the way of actual garbage. As in the 70's, all kitchen scraps go into the compost bin, ditto grass clippings and newspapers. It feels good to know I'm keeping unnecessary stuff out of the land fill. Honestly, I don't know why everyone doesn't have one.

Well, that's not strictly true - I do know why. 

Compost is ICKY.

My tumbler keeps the compost process under wraps, but I still wear gloves to lift the lid. Know why? Because there is plenty of life inside - a myriad of burrowing, slithering things eating my trash and breaking it down into soil again. 

First there are the earthworms. (Not a fan of worms ever since one surprised me by crawling over my ankle as I read Jane Eyre under a willow tree; what should have been a romantic moment descended into shrieking hysterics.)

Then there are the bugs - pillbugs, mites, and nematodes (small worms.) Those thangs like to crawl around on the lid when I lift it; hence, the gloves. 

ewwwwwwwww

Finally there are the unseen things - protozoa, microbes, crawling tiny creatures who live to eat my trash. They generate carbon dioxide and heat in the process (and I'm certain there is a way to harvest that energy for power - over to you, engineers.) It's my own little disgusting universe, all packed into a barrel.

Plus there's the compost itself, which must be rushed outside when it is generated. Yeah, you don't want to keep that stuff inside your house any longer than you have to, and when it's lashing down rain or freezing outside, taking out the scraps is a huge PIA.

So why do it?

 As I mentioned, there's less trash. In Ireland, there was no thought of recycling or composting until the land fills in the tiny country grew overloaded with garbage. Now, a lot of Irish households recycle and have composters because they pay for trash by the weight. 

Yeah, if I was paying per pound for my garbage, I'd rethink the simple "toss it" too. And I've noticed that Ireland, as a small island, is a glimpse into the future for the planet as a whole.

 Compost generates soil. No, I'm not sticking my hand inside my tumbler - nooooo thank you very much. However, the microbes and earthworms break down my scraps so much that the soil drops out the bottom and piles up around the tumbler. The new soil is dark, rich, odor-free, and the best fertilizer I have ever found for my plants. In fact, if I dig it up and add it around the roots of a dying bush or tree, the thing perks up instantly.  

What compost soil looks like. It's like chocolate and champagne for plants

Thank you, disgusting mini-universe in my backyard!

Those are two pretty good reasons to have your own little tiny universe in your garden. A tumbler costs about 100$, and mine has chewed at least a thousand pounds of trash, compacting it into a small amount of rich, nutritious soil for my garden.

So, if you can get past the ick factor, I highly suggest getting your own Tumbler.

And with it: thick rubber gloves.

The Farm Experiment; or, Robert Frost was Right

I grew up during the seventies on a farm. It was an experiment in organic living, run by my mother. When she proposed the idea, my sister and I agreed enthusiastically. We came from a place of Charlotte's Web, where animals spoke to each other and cool stuff happened, like word webs.

And it was really amazing on the farm, although there was a lot more Poo than I expected. Baby goats (we had four - two white females like angels and two brown males called Lucifer and Beelzebub) are adorable and loads of fun. They also pee like garden hoses.

So cute! But, serious turd factories.

The farm experiment taught me several things and changed me, I think, for the rest of my life. Tennyson says, "Nature red in tooth and claw." Boy, is that the truth. Rats lay in wait for ducklings and chicks, and I won't describe the results. Roosters attacked other roosters; it's just what they do. 


Then there was Dad with the hatchet, ready to take down some fifty hens at a time to clear out space and sell Sunday dinners. We quickly learned that death was a part of life and we just had to accept it.


That lesson has stayed with me. I don't know if that is a good thing. From that point forward, death was nothing to be feared. After the farm, a pet's demise was, while very sad, also perfectly natural.


"Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things
And yield with a grace to reason
And bow and accept the end
Of a love, or a season."


Robert Frost was right.