Projects & Recipes
For the past week it seems as if Spring has come to North Minnesota and I am in need of a compost container. Last year we dumped cut grass and twigs as well as non fat food scraps in a pile in the corner of the backyard. Oddly enough sunflower seeds got in there somehow, not entirely sure, but they grew. However, the pile looked awful! I realize a compost pile is not a thing of beauty, at least until you see the dark rich soil coming out of it. Still with 3 of my kids still on the smallish side, the less nasty they can get into, the better for me and my Tylenol supply.
A friend introduced me to the site called Pintrest. Let me just say this about Pintrest…it’s like crack cocaine, chocolate, and sex all rolled in one. It is a photo idea site designed in the manner of a bulletin board. You rummage through looking at pictures of yard stuff, animals, kitchen layouts and “pin” these pictures that inspire you to “your bulletin board”. You get a happy high when you find something you want to incorporate into your home, like chocolate you want more and you keep looking eating up hours, and very much like sex it is hard to stop and pull yourself away from the site. I was there last week looking at cob houses and marking idea’s to expand on. Then I ran across a compost bin of sorts and headed out into the yard. With my Pintrest picture idea fresh in my head I found Macggyver with his chainsaw in hand. PERFECT!!! Warm weather has brought yard clean up time sooner this year, bonus. We have some dead trees on our land and with little people walking down the trails we have to take them down so they don’t fall on anyone.
Macgyver cut up some trees for me and notched them. The man already thinks my brain is cooked, so it really didn’t hurt to ask him to give me dead trees. So what if he gave me yet another strange look, he cut, notched and helped me stack. Ah Lincoln logs were so much fun as a small child, weren’t they? I regress, OK you build the compost bin much the same way as Lincoln Logs of days gone by. You can build the bin as high as you want or low, totally up to you. We stayed knee high so I can rotate is and pull out soil easy. Last thing we need is my feet flailing in the air and stuck face planted in a compost bin. I have decided to have a couple around the yard. Keep them off to the edge of the yard so you are smelling the funk all summer, but near where you will want to use the soil.
This one was our first and is in the back by the chicken coop. The coop will be moved but I will need the soil for planting around the patio in the back.
The Pintrest picture I found, the bin was much taller by another 3 layers or so. Plus theirs had green trees around it and jade green moss growing on it. Mine not so much, sitting in dead grass as the snow melts and no pretty moss in sight. ah well at least the chicken poo hay is in one pile making soil now.
Crystal Rayne 