this is a picture of what was once mighty and powerful claws, now the claws of a very old and sleeping ............
Max.................. He spends much of his day and night sleeping..........and wheezing. He is so old and ragged.........like an over loved teddy bear. The whole house is quiet as I sit and type away...........with the sounds of breathing from the cats , Sophie, and the family members who know it's time to get some rest. From outside, I can hear the hoot of an owl who has taken up residence in the woods surrounding our home. I have been bringing egg shells, coffee grounds, tea grounds, and potato and onion peelings from work for my compost "project". My boss was more than happy for me to take them home with me every day. Now I have quite a big pile. I have it in a large container in which I rotate and add to, and then I have an enormous pile on the ground that I am going to till straight into my garden spaces. I shovel the mixture all on top of the spaces and then work it all into the soil with the tiller. I till the ground throughout the winter, (weather permitting), and by spring the ground is rich and ready for planting. I mix the part in the container with soil and other compost medium and use it for potting mix. The bag I bring from the cafe each day has given me enough to work all of my spaces this year. Tomorrow, the weather is supposed to be pleasant, and I plan to work out in garden. I have decided that I am only growing flowers and pumpkins in the next year. It is what I love the most. How about you?Do you compost? Are you thinking about what you would like to grow next year?
I would love to hear!
22 comments:
It is almost midnight here and I need to call it a night - then I read your post and love it. Aren't the quiet times precious in our home with the accompanying sounds from the creatures inside and out. Your compost sounds so good. I have to figure out a system for my kitchen scraps. I need something closer then the garden compost pile out back. We just don't go out there during the rainy fog that we have for the next couple of months.
I very much like this post. The sounds of my home in the evening as I type..of dogs and cats sighing and snoring in their sleep as I hear the noises of the wild and farm animals just outside, sometimes combined with the sound of the many winter storms we have that wipe out our internet and T.V. service. Reminders that God is the only One in control of the weather and blesses us with the simple and comforting pleasures of beloved pets, and an extra hour or so of sleep. Peaceful dreams and a restful sleep true blessings.
We do compost, but not as much as we should. You will have a hearty harvest!
Kathleen, we compost a lot, not kitchen scraps (they go to the chickens) but horse manure. I generally have three piles going, the one that is ready, the one that is working, and the one that is being collected. Three horses convert a lot of hay in a year, particularly in the winter. Once broken down, it looks and smells like the finest loam that you can imagine. It grows vegetables like you wouldn't believe!
We used to compost table scraps before we got chickens, but they enjoy the change of diet so much, it's more fun to give it to them.
Three horses produce about 5 wheelbarrows of poop per week, so we have a very large pile by spring. It reduces to about a quarter the size over the summer and gets extremely ( smoking) hot, thereby killing off any pathogens or weed seeds. And it's free, sort of, if you can call $5.00 per square bale "free".
Hello Kathleen! That is a sweet picture of the sleeping Max the cat. Your compost will make your garden dirt rich, I'm sure. I don't have a garden, but when I was a child, my parents had one and used to have a compost pile for it. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! :-)
How wonderful, Kathleen, to have all that bonus "stuff" to bring home and put into compost. I have a container on the kitchen counter that all that type waste goes into, and then I take it out to the chickens. They do the composting work for me. They are such wonderful little cultivators.
I love that picture of Max's little feet. It's sad to see any of our animals get old and not so strong, but good to know they've had a good full life, lived with people they love.
Hope you're enjoying your day outside in your garden.
Hugs,
Elaine
Hi Kathleen. Wow, you've got some fertile soil to grow in at your place! Pumpkins and flowers - that sounds great - just grown what you love! I waited too late (once again) to plant pumpkins this year. When did you plant yours? And did you plant from seed?
This spring, I'm only going to plant what we'll eat. I've experimented in the past to see what I could grow and tried all sorts of different veggies, etc. But this spring will be just what we'll eat. Onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, lots of green beans and purple hull peas (they did well), squash, watermelon. that's about it. No sense in wasting water and time working on things that don't do well in my dirt.
I'll have to get some pointers from you on Zinnias. Isn't that what you like? Mine didn't do very well last year... ;(
PS - I sort of like the house at night, when everyone else's asleep and I can do what I want...
Hey Kathleen, seems you got a bonus kind of job, where you can keep the compost too:o) We didn't realize how much we were throughing away instead of giving it back to the land by composting. We have become very thrifty with it now.
Nice you got that extra hour...they are the best...Ginny
Definitely sunflowers! I missed them so much this year I am determined not to go without again :)
Hi Kathleen, how have you been??? Still working at the diner, and up so late??? But it's good to have time to oneself. Loved reading your post about the sounds you heard while writing, I truly felt like I was there. For a big city such as San Diego, it can be spooky quiet around here at times.
Looking so forward to the day I can compost once again. I so miss gardening everyday. But soon, as we are planning to move from San Diego is less then six months.
blessings,
jilly
I put in my winter garden a few weeks ago and it's doing well; carrots, beets, lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli. It's the time of year when our citrus come on strong also. And yes, I couldn't do it without my compost.
Cute blog. I found you through Peggy at Primitive Plot. Your cat is beautiful. I know what you mean about the old claws. I haven’t started composting but so want to. I guess I get overwhelmed by how to do it and just need to do it. Looking forward to reading more :)
Come visit us at Verde Farm if you get a chance.
Amy :)
I always think about my gardening ... but do not compost. My Mother composted, as did my FIL. Love the pooch & kitty.
Have a lovely winters eve ~
TTFN ~ Marydon
Max is doing my favorite thing! I have a chihuahua who loves to nap too! We have a compost pile in the yard we'll use for next year's garden.
My cat is old too...still plays some. Kept getting in my box of xmas deco and now is asleep under the tree... on the red skirt...which will be all harry (o:
Love the old kitty pictures..we have one like that. I enjoy sitting at my computer late at night too..why does it seem like we can think better when we should be in bed. Billy and the girls are gone to bed and pups are asleep on the couch. We hear coyotes here a lot at night but not real sure I like having them close.
When I go to bed and the pups follow me it sure does keep us warm and can turn the heater off in our bedroom. I just feel better and can sleep better when I know all the critters are warm and comfy too..they all get up tho way before I do..isn't that what retirement is all about :)
Hi Kathleen, I travelled to your blog from Ginny's Ginerbread's Hoouse and found it very interesting and plan to revisit. Yes, we also compost on our small place on the VA eastern shore. We bought a rotating compost bin and were putting in the coffee grinds, eggshells, vegetable waste but the compost pile we started just in a pile did much better. The rotating bin was hard to turn and we stopped using it. Hope you have better luck with yours. Feel free to stop in and visit our blog anytime as we do enjoy visits and comments too
http://www.thefrogandpenguinn.blogspot.com/
My goodness, you are busy! Thanks for coming by my blog. I can't believe the time and effort you put into your compost, but then, I have alpaca poo, so have plenty. We compost by adding all of our house scraps to the poo pile. Folks from the City just love to come out and get the composted alpaca poo for their gardens.
I'll be following your blog. I'm another City Dweller turned farmer and loving it.
A dear old cat is such a sweet addition to life! I love the paw picture!
We give most of our peelings to the chickens and goats. But we do put quite a bit of compost on our garden each year.
What to grow? Growing a garden is not as easy done...as we think it should be! Even our pumpkins didn't do very well this year. And, the tomatoes got the blight. But..we will probably plant them all over again and along with the other staples. Flowers are a must..lots of them!! I'd like to have one of those neat little gardens..instead of the big, sprawled out kind we do! Hmm..I wonder if I can get my husband to agree? The plowing is easier in the big garden. :)
Happy days to you this week!
That first pictue makes your kitties paws look big and dangerous.... then the next shot, sweet & sleeping!!
The purring cats and snoring dogs lull me to sleep--it is so reassuring and comforting somehow. I know they say that animals shouldn't sleep in the bedroom and I awake most mornings with a stuffy nose even though we turn the heat way down at night. I like to sleep in a cold room with lots of comfy covers!
I do save coffee and tea grounds, egg shells and peelings for my garden--this year I will grow flowers and tomatoes- I would love to grow pumpkins--maybe this year I will!
After I lost my chickens I couldn't remember what I used to do with all the scraps from the kitchen...then I remembered my long forgotten compost heap. So I'm back at it again.
How nice you are able to work outside in the winter....we are frozen solid.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/
Awww... sweet little Max's paws are precious, Kathleen.
Sounds like you are going to have some wonderful fertilizer next spring!
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