Fun with Composting

In another life, I had a passionate environmentalist boyfriend who used to live in a bookmobile, eat rotten fruit and time my showers. Dad truly loved him. Needless to say it was fun to rebel for a while after that, but learning about environmental stewardship has been far more gratifying now that I'm doing it on my own. So if your insistent, van-dwelling ex-swain left you wanting to clean your house with round-up, mercury and hydrochloric acid, don't despair!

I found a funny site about all the stuff you can compost. It's called 163 Things you can Compost; And the List Keeps Growing! My favorite things on there were dryer lint, tea bags and dried jellyfish. 

Finally! I have a whole damn closet full of dried jellyfish. I was saving them for a craft but apparently they don't work well as hair for toilet roll puppets and they don't turn grapes into grape jelly. In a letter posted on the site a woman describes how she had her husband urinate in the compost bin, but that idea only elicited a raised eyebrow in the Blicky homestead. We actually use that around the garden in an alpha dog way to discourage animals. So far no unwanted visitors this year. There are so many fun composting tips too on my new favorite blog, Bean Sprouts.

The thing I'm learning about composting is that aside from the obvious benefits for your garden and the environment (I just learned recently was that composing lowers greenhouse gas emissions by preventing organic materials from decomposing anaerobically in a landfill), it gets me thinking about all these objects and sundry substances that float in and out of our lives and how I want to manage it all. Lately I'm finding it easier and a bit liberating to make stuff homemade and avoid all the packaging and preservatives. Making graham crackers, for example, is really not too hard and it makes the house smell way yummy.

Blicky is finally inspired to start his own recycling bin. He's submitted a list of composting ideas based on things he's composted on our property so far:

1) Kitty litter

2) Plutonium

3) Egg shells

4) Human hair

5) Fuel rods

6) Broken welders

7) Chemical weapons

Things have been a little different around here ever since Blicky won that contract with the Defense Department.