A Pile of Shit

There's a horse riding ranch two minutes away, where I used to go riding as a kid, and where Z had his birthday party a few years back. PJ and I drove out there first thing this morning.

'Is it OK if we collect some of your poo?' I asked one of the owners when we arrived.

'You can't collect mine, but you can collect the horses',' he told me, straight-faced.

And so we got to shovellin'. It was cold out and the shit was hot and steaming, and filled with worms our chickens dined on each of the three times we returned home with a car-load.

I've never been a red roses kinda gal and I've never been one for posed photos in a nice frame up on the mantle from holidays gone by. But I would never have described shovelling shit as a romantic pastime until today either.

But boy was it! The cool air, the steaming dung, no-one in the field except my beloved and I, working hard side-by-side to move the fecund waste so it can turn our clay earth into rich soil to grow good food for our family.

Dinner and movie? Chocolates in the shape of a heart? Give me a shovel, my man and a pile of shit any day.

Compost Composed

Rednesday

This year marks a decade since I first became attracted to the colour red. 

In 1999 I returned home to Melbourne from travelling through Asia to settle down for a while; find a job and a home. Regular life seemed so colourless compared to the cities and villages I had travelled in.

I don't remember if I sought out these clogs or if I saw them in a store window and just knew I had to have them. All I remember is that I was home from travelling through countries where red is the colour of prosperity, and I bought these shoes.

In those days I wore them wherever I went, though these days they sit by the front door – easy to slip on when I go outside to empty the compost bucket, check on the chooks or pull the flying fox rope back up for Z.

Composting

Happy International Composting Awareness Week!

Although it's a global celebration, it makes sense for us that it's held during autumn because of the trees losing their leaves at this time of year to create their own compost at the bottom of their trunks. Trees are so clever!

We spent this afternoon gathering food for our compost monster who, by the end of the day, was satiated and happy with grass, leaves, weeds and other nutritious snacks she likes to munch on so she can digest it into rich and fertile soil.

Waste Not

We had leftover pancake mixture this morning so I thought I'd cook a few up for the chooks. I got sidetracked and left this one on the pan too long. It didn't burn but it was a bit stiff. I soaked it in water and fed it to them along with some others I made.

They ate them all.

What we don't use or feed the chooks, we compost.

Growing up my mum used to say that the meaning of life is compost. Oh how wise you are Mamman.

What we don't use goes to enriching our land and what I don't use, goes to informing this Land.

PJ calls this lack of waste a closed-cycle ecology, I call it Blogging 101.

Kill Bill

Billy, left, was getting worse. She had stopped laying, had gone off her food and was becoming increasingly antisocial. Unfortunately PJ had to kill her yesterday. I asked him how he did it, thinking I wanted to know, but when he said he wasn't going to tell me I was pleased.

Instead of letting Cuba and Dirt eat her, in case they too became sick, PJ put her in the compost. If she couldn't provide us with eggs, then let her decomposed little body turn to soil and help make our vegetables grow.

All day I have been thinking of these Monbiot words:

Darwinian evolution tells us that we are incipient compost... I like the idea of literal reincarnation: that the molecules of which I am composed will, once I have rotted, be incorporated into other organisms. Bits of me will be pushing through the growing tips of trees, will creep over them as caterpillars, will hunt those caterpillars as birds. When I die, I would like to be buried in a fashion which ensures that no part of me is wasted. Then I can claim to have been of some use after all.

Bee-youtiful

We spent the morning at Z's school with all the other parents for a working bee. The kids were excited it was the last day of term and that their parents were in their grounds.

We worked that ground. We dug, we found rocks at one end and lined them up in a row at the other. We mulched and composted and planted and swept and raked and pruned. Then we sat around with the kids and had a BBQ lunch. It was a day of considerate reclamation.

And so too in Melbourne, as in many other other cities around the globe that celebrated International Park(ing) Day, where people took to the streets to reclaim public space as public space.

Blazing Blazey

This is the book I bought PJ for his birthday. It's written and signed by our hero, Clive Blazey, founder of The Digger's Club, where we buy the majority of our seeds. 

Here is his introduction from the Digger's Winter Garden 2008 catalogue:

Dear Minister

We would like to see a government supported campaign to encourage the growing of fruit and vegetables in Australian back yards. When we grow our own food at home we cut our greenhouse emissions by 25-30% because we don't rely on commercial crops which:

• Consume non-renewable oil to till the soil, plant the seed, weed the crop, harvest the crop and transport it to the silo or market.
  
• Consume electricity to process the crop, package the crop, refrigerate the crop and finally to provide lighting at the supermarket.
  
• Consume oil which is the main ingredient of nitrogen fertilisers, weedkillers and pesticides that grow the crop.
  
• Consume electricity used to pump the water for irrigation.
  
• Finally the consumer drives by car to the market to pick up the food and bring it back - using non-renewable oil.
  

When gardeners grow their own food at home they eliminate all these steps and from day one, meet half our 2050 Kyoto target of 60% reduction 42 years early!

Gardeners are the largest group of people bringing CO2 back to earth. A campaign encouraging food gardeners will reach 3-4 million households.

• Growing lawns, trees and flowers brings CO2 back to earth. By composting and recycling green waste at home we are sequestering carbon in the soil. 
  
• Gardening being a home based activity means gardeners drive less, buy less, and consume less than other groups. It is pedantic to say gardening is "green," but it is "greener" than any other activity.

30% of Diggers staff have cut their CO2 emissions by 60% today – 42 years ahead of target. They have done this by: 

• Growing their own food – a 25-30% saving
  
• Buying carbon offsets for their cars
  
• Switching to renewable energy
• Installing solar hot water, riding bikes etc.
• Growing plants instead of laying concrete and paving
• Composting and recycling

When we grow our own we use less land and less water to produce our food than commercial growers. Diggers research shows gardeners who grow their own food cut water use by 66%.

Not all gardening activity brings CO2 down to earth, particularly the modern fad for paving and flaxes which minimises bio mass and photosynthesis. For this reason we believe the campaign should be focused on growing food rather than just supporting gardening in general. 

Yours,

Clive Blazey, The Diggers Club

Shit

I am sore today, from shovelling shit at a nearby horse ranch for our compost, not from dancing last night.

Up here in these wintry hills, there has to be a damn good reason to go out, even on a Saturday night. Last night we had one: TZU playing nearby. We also had: a lesson in expectation.

It was raining but we left our jackets in the car, ordered drinks and chatted with the other locals who had left their cosy homes - we were all cocked, busting to dance.

The support act was good, but we wanted to pace ourselves.

TZU took to the stage and the dancefloor swarmed with locals shaking dust from their winter crooks, but for us, the music didn't get to where it needed to go. We left before they finished the set. 

My ears were ringing, but sleep found me, an easy target.

The Compost Co-op

A few months ago we sat, as we like to do, by the fire at our favourite local café having our morning coffees.

And, as we also like to do, we steered the conversation with the lovely café owner around to the rich and glorious topic of compost.

When we left, we headed down the hill to the hardware, where we bought a small bucket that now lives in the café kitchen, for the food scraps and coffee grounds. When it's full, it gets tipped into this black bin that we collect, empty into our compost at home then bring back, in return for vegies.