Hearing the city’s leaf-vacuum truck making its rounds this morning reminded me of a project we completed this weekend. Saturday’s weather was superb, so while Kelly and Hallie attended a birthday party, Travis and i spent the morning raking (and leafblowing) leaves. Travis really enjoyed aiming the leafblower as we cleaned the yard. He especially enjoyed jumping into the leaf piles we created!
The leaves were for a good cause, though. Once the girls returned, I began work on a compost heap in the backyard behind the fence. I fenced off an area 54″ square and piled the leaves, banana peels, old pumpkins, and other organic stuff, dousing it with a good shower of water (collected rainwater, of course). The kids were excited to help build it and are helping to add to it.
We’ve got a bucket in our kitchen to collect all the food we’d ordinarily throw away. We’ll soon replace this with a foot-pedal garbage can, but its a start. With some regular TLC we should have some good compost in a few months.
On a related note, I recall our compost bin in Garner getting quite warm when the microbes were active. Active compost piles can reach temperatures of 150 degrees! It got me wondering if it was possible to somehow heat a house with this free biological heat. Wouldn’t that be something?