"We Are Now Composters."

Earlier this summer, Eddie, Ellen and I visited a friend in Alabama. She put us up in her beautiful house in the country. The house sits on a hill and from the kitchen we could see the deck, that overlooked the pool, that was next to the garden, that was next to the horse pasture. In her kitchen we cooked meals together, gossiped like old times, and watched Ellen chase her dogs around the house.

During the course of one of our conversations while preparing a meal, I spied a beautiful, chrome bucket sitting on her counter. I asked her what it was for. "Compost," she said. "We have a compost pile behind the fence." I remembered that her father maintained a compost pile in her old back yard, here in Baton Rouge. When I was 16, I remember thinking it odd that when I was over for dinner or to spend the night, her family treated the vegetable scraps differently than my family. MY family just tossed 'em. HER family cleaned the kitchen after dinner, all of the dishes and counters and table and everything except the purposeful pile of vegetation. After all was done, her father would gather the scraps and head outside. To the compost pile. HER father had a rose bed in the front yard, and I assumed he used it for that. MY father cut the grass and trimmed the edges, that was about it.

When we returned home from our Alabama vacation, I had big dreams of gardening and building and painting and rearranging and COMPOSTING!!! But to make any of these things happen with a full-time job, a very nearly two year old and dishes and clothes and cooking... pesky little things like "needing to get some sleep" sometimes get in the way. So I set my bar really low.

I mean, who can't compost, right? It's just putting this part of the trash over here, instead of over there. Right? No. Turns out you need a bin. And a place to put the bin, a place with "good drainage." Once you get the bin, you find out that you need some chicken wire or netting as a barrier to the soil you need to till before you put the chicken wire down and the bin on top of it. Keep me honest if I'm not doing my math right, but THAT'S A WHOLE 'NOTHER TRIP TO THE HARDWARE STORE, PEOPLE. So, once received, the bin may or may not have sat in our garage for a few weeks.

Today Ellen went to her grandparent's house for a hefty portion of the day.
Today Eddie had the day off from work.
Today I got a text at 2:24 pm with the picture below attached. It read, "We are now composters."

I still lack the fancy, chrome compost bucket. But I'm on my way. I wonder when I'll get the text, "We now have a pool." That'll be a good picture.