The Bounty of Spring

This has been an odd week.  Not because of odd happenings, but because I've caught some kind of bug that has made my head an odd place in which to reside.

Normally when I'm sick, all of my emotions are flat.  I can't summon the motivation to care about much of anything, and all my senses are dulled.  We've all been there, right?

This week has been different.  I've had some kind of bug that several people in the area seem to be likewise suffering from- nothing major, just mild, persistent nausea, nagging headache along with aches and pains, and a general feeling of malaise and run-down-ness.

What makes this bug special is that, at least for me, it has included heightened emotions.  And no, I am not pregnant.  Just so we're clear.

Case in point:  Last night, while gathering ingredients for the supper I had in mind, I couldn't find the ground ginger.  I tore my spice cabinet apart and found THREE containers of thyme, but no ginger.  I even found a small pot of sage, which is completely useless to me, as I can't stand the smell or taste of sage.  But ginger?  None.

Is this worth crying over?  It almost was last night.  I really wanted beef noodle bowls.

Once I got over the devastating ginger-related loss (my life is so hard), I decided to make quiche.  I was refreshing my memory on how to make PW's pie crust, and her instructions included not the usual phrase involved in the making of pastries, "combine until it resembles coarse meal," but "gradually work... until it resembles a coarse meal. (Emphasis mine)"  Just the inclusion of that little article "a" filled my brain with images of a plate containing asparagus and maybe chicken telling me dirty jokes and inappropriate stories.

Naturally this filled me with such mirth I laughed until I was almost too weak to wield the pastry cutter.  I didn't think much of it- everyone laughs at the jokes their brain tells them, right?- until Caedmon came over, laid his little hand on my arm, and asked, "Are you okay, Mommy?"

It's possible I've come across as a trifle unbalanced this week.  Is it possible for a germ to generate symptoms of mild manic depression?

Episodes of feverish hilarity aside, there were plenty of high points this week.  My peach hyacinths bloomed:

The tulips are also beginning to open up:

I also finally got my lettuce in, the only cool season veggie I plant.  I turned the compost heap and it produced a prodigious amount of beautiful, black, hearty compost to nourish the garden with this year.  I went to my first garage sales of the season and came back with nice garments for Adelaide and Atticus both, including tennis shoes for Atticus for just a few bucks that should work for school in the fall.  I had no idea how such nice shoes could possibly have so little wear, as any shoes our six-year-old tromps around in look like they've been through a wood chipper after a mere three or four months of use.  The very nice lady who lived in the McMansion where the sale was located swooped in to explain, however, that she had bought them for her son, who refused to wear them because they weren't the exact right shade of blue.  I said a prayer of thanks for her kid's brattiness and its indirect benefit to our kid, who was pleased as punch with the shoes.

Germs, flowers, and garage sale finds:  It's finally starting to feel like spring!

Suspicious Previous Owners

Four years ago, I became convinced we had a dead body in our backyard.

Four years and two months ago, we moved into this house.


It's August of 2009.  In the short time since we've moved into our house, we've been doing normal cleaning and moving in-type stuff, mostly focused on the interior of our home.

One day I venture into the backyard to investigate the compost heap the previous owners so kindly left behind for us (<---- I've tried typing that statement several different ways and it always sounds sarcastic, but it's not- I really was happy that this was a feature of our new yard), digging through it a bit to see what they've been piling on there.

Then I notice the giant black trash bags.

There were at least a dozen of them, and they were piled high in the small space between the fencing of the compost heap and the corner of the fence that surrounds our yard.  They all seemed to be hugely full.  I tentatively grabbed the drawstring of one, pulled to test the weight, and discovered that it was absurdly heavy.

Obviously there was a dead body in there.

In my mind, there was no other possible explanation.  Yes, those were the huge black yard waste-style trash bags (big enough for a body), but why on earth would you put grass clippings and such in bags when you have a two compost bins, a fire pit, and miles of flower beds that need to be mulched?

I poked at the top layer of bags a bit with a stick, and while it didn't feel like poking a dead body (because I have so much experience in the "poking corpses with sticks" field), it was more than conceivable to me that they filled the top bags with leaves or whatever and buried the body somewhere in the morass of supposed yard waste.  It was quite brilliant, really.  The compost pile would help disguise the smell of decomposition (or so I'm led to believe based on my considerable knowledge gleaned from murder mystery books), and after a few years it would all be more organic nutrients for the garden, anyway!

This is really not where I meant to go with this post.


I decided a dead body was way more than I was willing to deal with and, thanks to my possibly unhealthy ability to compartmentalize, willfully ignored those trash bags for four years.


Until a few weeks ago.

I finally decided it was time for me to grow up and find out exactly what was hiding in there.  Astonishingly (to no one but me), there were no humans anywhere in that mess, dead or otherwise, although I did have a bad moment when one of the bags broke open when I was dragging it into the open, it burst open, and thousands of roly polies came swarming out.

I got the corner cleaned out.  The bags contained grass clippings, leaves, and pine cones.  And the roly poly family reunion.  And an earthworm that was so big I thought it was a snake at first.

Maybe in another four years I'll have screwed up enough courage to clear away the cinder blocks piled out side the back of our fence (why would they have left a pile of those things in such a strange, out-of-the-way location?  CLEARLY something is afoot here).

The Lazy Composter

You just never know about people.

Walking down the street, that person you pass by could be an axe murderer.  They could have a person walled into a corner of their basement.  They might not compost.

Okay, so maybe that one isn't that big of a deal.  Having a person in your basement, I mean.  Maybe you're a hardcore Edgar Allan Poe fan.  Maybe you've completely thrown yourself into the recent 'vintage' fad and have taken on an indentured servant.  Maybe you were lonely.

People who don't compost, though?  Oh, man.

Now, I'm not saying that if you don't compost we can't be friends.  We can.  Probably.  Especially if you live in the city/ have a yard the size of a postage stamp/ have 3+ small children in your home.  Then I suppose I can understand it.

Otherwise?  Why the heck aren't you composting already?


You know what composting is?  It's throwing your trash in a pile.  That's it.  Sure, you can make it super complicated.  Some people (like those who write entire books about composting) can make anything difficult.  I am not one of them.



How about a quick Composting for the Completely Inept and/or Lazy tutorial?

Step 1.  Pick a spot outside.  In your own yard would be preferable.  Wherever, it should be a sunny location.  We need our special trash to get nice and warm.

Beware:  This is where nurseries and seed catalogs and basically anyone trying to take your money will try and sell you one of those drum-things with a handle that you can turn.  If you feel your life won't be complete without it, go ahead.  But don't feel like you need anything remotely fancy to compost.  Our compost pile is comprised of four stakes surrounded by fine-gauge wire, with one side up against the fence for stability.  I know several people who just have a free-standing pile in their yards or garden.



Step 2.  Find a large bowl or pail or something, and throw your kitchen scraps in (banana peels, orange rinds, eggshells, etc).

Beware:  This is the step where people will try to sell you special composting pails.  This is a glorified trash can.  It does not need to be pretty.  Just make sure your two-year-old can carry it; I'm all about avoiding as much work as possible around here.



Step 3.  Start throwing the kitchen scraps onto the spot.  Any kind of fruit or vegetable waste is fine.  Eggshells are also great.  No meat or bones.  Paper and newsprint is also fine, provided it's shredded and isn't super heavy on the colored ink or has any kind of plastic anywhere on it.  Dryer lint, hair, and the gunk from your canister vacuum is also great.

Beware:  This is where you'll get people telling you things like, "Don't put citrus peels in your compost," and "Always wash out your eggshells before throwing in."  These are I-Live-To-Make-My-Life-As-Difficult-As-Possible kind of people and if you don't plug your ears and start singing "Abba" to make them run away, they'll make your life harder than it needs to be, too.



Step 4.  Throw some yard waste on, too.  I throw some leaves on in the fall, and grass clippings every once in a while.  I know a lot of people throw their weeds in theirs, but the big weed in our yard is Creeping Charlie, and if I throw it in there, it'll just make a giant mound of more Creeping Charlie rather than beautiful compost to put in my flower and vegetable beds.  My advice:  skip the weeds altogether.  Just burn 'em.  Also avoid thick sticks or twigs; they take too long to break down.  I don't put large pinecones in mine anymore for the same reason.

Beware:  This is where that same person will start talking about "hot composting" and "cold composting."  Just walk away.



Step 5.  Turn the pile, basically whenever you think about it.  For me, that's about twice a year.  Maybe you should do it more often than that.  I use a small pitchfork to do mine, which makes me feel all American.  And Gothic.  Put together.  (Who gets it?!)

Beware:  This is where that guy will try to talk you into Vermicomposting.  If you're that desperate to get fancy with your compost heap, dig a few worms up in the yard and throw them on.



Step 6.  This is the best step, because it's the one where one day you turn the pile and discover that there's beautiful, crumbly black compost in there, ready to add to your vegetable gardens and flower beds.  I try to add a scoop anytime I'm planting something- particularly perennial flowers- because hopefully they're going to be there a long time, and they need a healthy start.  Super easy, practically free.  You can't beat that.




Okay, my fellow composters:  What am I forgetting?  Any cheap and easy tricks I don't know about?