Posts Tagged ‘compost’
Double Double
I am doing double, double-duty this week: at home, I am covering for Cyndie while she is visiting the west coast with friends, and at the day-job, I am filling in for a vacationing employee. What an unfortunate coincidental timing for these two situations to occur.
I am taxed with not being able to leave home before rush-hour traffic builds, because I need to tend to our daily morning animal-care routine first, while at the same time, I have twice the work facing me at the day-job, which realistically requires I spend extra time there. Not gonna happen. I need to get home early to rescue Delilah from the confines of her outdoor kennel and then feed the horses their afternoon nutrition.
Somethings gotta give, and I’m afraid it’s going to be service to our customers for a few days. Maybe they won’t notice.
At home, I fear the never-ending grass growth is likely to be my ongoing nemesis. It needs mowing again already! I didn’t have time yesterday after work. Between needing to give Delilah a healthy amount of attention and cleaning up a day’s worth of manure, the ever-shorter evening daylight hours were easily consumed.
Now that I am checking the temperature of the composting manure pile every day, I am finding that I need to turn it over with the pitch fork much more often that I had been doing.
I took a picture of the thermometer displaying that it was over 160° (F) again, after I had just mixed it around on Sunday. What a fascinating phenomenon that heat generation is.
Speaking of heat, we are enjoying a spectacular rendition of warm September days this week. Yesterday felt like warmth of a summer day, but there is no mistaking the subtle clues that frame it as autumnal.
I expect that the changing angle of the sun contributes greatly, but the actuality of that is not entirely obvious. Around our place, we’ve already got enough crunchy leaves over our trails that they are contributing a distinct fall-like aroma to go along with the auditory serenade that happens beneath footsteps.
We are in a period of high winds, as well, and something about the way the rushing warm air felt on my skin last night gave me a feeling that this is something special to be appreciated. It was hot, without being hot. Seriously. That may not make sense to you, but it explains the impression that warm September air can produce.
I am challenged with needing to luxuriate in this brilliantly spectacular weather for more than just myself, but for Cyndie, too, since I’m absorbing her share of bliss while she’s gone. It’s the least I could do.
It wouldn’t make much sense to only take on the burdens her absence presents, would it?
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Not Stinky
Pondering smells…
I didn’t live with cats until Cyndie and the kids successfully achieved adding one to our family unit. I didn’t have a strong aversion to cats. It was more what I would describe as a lack of interest in them. When I found myself facing the reality of having one in our home, my main concern was the smell of the litter box. I didn’t want to know it existed in our house. In time, I came to appreciate cats, but the litter box remained Cyndie’s responsibility unless I absolutely couldn’t weasel a way out of it.
When Cyndie landed work that provided good income, but would demand most of her time and attention, I was approved to take on the role of Ranch Manager. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but the reality of tending the litter box was included in the many daily tasks about to become my sole responsibility.
I seem to have adjusted my sensitivities and am having no difficulties managing the chore of regularly cleaning the litter box.
I didn’t live with horses until just a year and a half ago. I knew manure would be a significant issue to manage, but I tended not to dwell on it. I figured it would be nasty necessary evil. I have come to realize the I don’t find it nasty at all.
Since the snow melted off the fields, we have slowly worked on spreading the droppings that had accumulated over the winter. I’ve tried a variety of different tools for the job, but so far the best results come from simply kicking the piles apart. While I was fervently flailing away in the back pasture yesterday, I became aware of what I now find to be a pleasant smell of the dry manure being broken apart.
There are certain smells typically associated with the keeping of horses. When a barn is well maintained, the aroma is a combination of hay, maybe a little dust, and probably some remnants of dried manure. To a horse-lover, it is an appealing smell. It resonates like wood smoke or the scent of leaves on the ground in the fall.
When I bury the pitch fork deep into the pile of composting manure and turn over the portion that has been breaking down, the smell is far from stinky. It is a rich, earthy smell that I find very appealing. It is a rewarding success to take fresh horse manure that can be offensive smelling and, in a relatively short time, convert it to something that smells pretty good.
It is an interesting twist that I tend to find the smell of perfumes irritating. Along the lines of beauty being in the eye of the beholder, I guess appealing aromas are in the nose of the breather.
Although, who doesn’t like the smell of fresh-baked bread? That one must be universal!
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Mixed Blessing
I am struggling a bit to come up with something for today that is worthy of following yesterday’s wonderful guest post by Brooke. That was a big hit, noticeably increasing the number of views by almost double what is normal for Relative Something. It sure was something, and Brooke is my relative, so there you go.
My desperate efforts to accomplish everything I dreamed of doing before we get to leave for Guatemala are being complicated by the fact that I was still needed at the old day-job for yesterday and today, and by the little spring snow storm that paid a visit. They are both mixed blessings.
For helping the old company, I will be rewarded with a bit of unplanned income, so although it has eaten into my time for preparing to travel, the money helps to finance our trip.
The snow is nice because it provides much-needed ground moisture and will soak in, as opposed to just run off. Unfortunately, it also created the additional burden (which I have little time for) of needing to move the horses indoors overnight. That creates work the following day, because I need to then clean out the stalls.
I just spent hours over the weekend tending to the composting manure piles to clear some space for new dumping while we are gone. That space has become significantly less available now after having dumped 4-stalls-worth of manure and urine soaked wood shavings there.
When we return home, I’m going to have a lot of manure waiting to join that pile. I sure hope the composting restarts as soon as the snow and ice all melt.
Meanwhile, I have decided to plan on not posting while we are away. I could use a break from my self-imposed daily grind. However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be posts appearing each day during my little vacation. I have scoured the archive of my Words on Images files and selected a variety that I think deserve a re-showing here.
I hope you enjoy seeing them again. I plan to get back to live posting after we return (if we return) during the first week of April. Holy cow. April.
I’m sure I’ll have plenty of new stories to tell by then. Ta ta for now!
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Count Down
It’s beginning to feel like minutes, not days, until we depart on our travels to visit friends in Guatemala. Cyndie has done a heroic job of rallying to tend to details both necessary and convenient. I was a bit surprised to see her organizing kitchen utensil drawers before we go, but it was a gesture of thinking about making things convenient for those who will be house-sitting for us while we are away.
Our friend and soon-to-be hostess in Guatemala, Dunia, has been calling and sending photos to prepare us, to inspire our glee, and to share their excitement over having us visit. I need to practice staying in the moment so I will be able to fully absorb every minute we have with them, as I am already sensing how quickly our stay of limited days will pass.
Of course, both Cyndie and I have been heard to tease with our family that we will be gone for only a week and a half, …if we come back.
I am noticing mixed feelings about our preparedness to leave the care of our property and animals to a variety of people, some who have had nothing more than one brief visit to inform their managing of our place. I have no doubts about their abilities to take good care of Delilah, Pequenita, and our horses, but I fret over the complications thrown in by weather events that spring is known to unleash here.
After working frantically yesterday to take advantage of the dryness of the upper levels of the paddocks, raking out the divots created when it was soft and wet, the moisture is due to return today with more than an inch of fresh snow. In the days ahead, our animal sitters will need to think about bringing horses in from the cold and wet. That means creating additional amounts of soiled bedding in the barn stalls that will need to be disposed of in the compost pile.
Yikes! There isn’t much room left in the compost space. On Friday I worked to create space at the front of the compost pile so it would be easier to dump manure while we are gone. There is only one small section that is actively breaking down right now, visible on my new thermometer. I will work to ‘restart’ the other zones of the pile after we return from Guatemala, but until then, the pile is just going to grow.
We have some temporary piles established inside the paddocks to reduce the need to haul manure out while we are gone. If the weather doesn’t get too wet and messy, the cleanup should be manageable. I can hope!
Today, while it snows, I will be trying to figure out where my summer clothes are so I can pack for our trip, while simultaneously struggling to compile the last of the necessary tax information to drop at our preparers office before we go.
The minutes are dwindling, and we couldn’t be more thrilled!
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Expanding Storage
Earlier this year we began removing the cinder landscape blocks Cyndie purchased to help us mark the labyrinth path, replacing them with rocks we have collected. I reused the cinder blocks to create a nook for staging composted manure. 
Yesterday, at Cyndie’s prompting, we finally got back to removing the rest of the blocks. I had no idea there were so many remaining.
We decided to use the additional cinder blocks to expand our materials storage, creating another bay for staging wood chips.
It is a wonder to see how quickly we can convert an overgrown natural area into a manicured space with a new function. Now, I need to find time to get back to grinding up the many piles of brush I have created in the last few weeks.
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Unsanitary Landfill
I laughed at myself yesterday, thinking about my unorthodox methods. When I lived in the suburbs, I would collect fallen leaves and spread them all around our lot as ground cover, while all my neighbors were collecting theirs and bagging them to be thrown away. Now I am using composting manure to fill low spots, without waiting for it to become dirt.
One area I am working on is just outside the back door of the barn. Last year when we were creating the paddocks, we had water piped from the barn to a Ritchie waterer for the horses. Excavators dug a very deep trench to get below the frost line, and it exited the barn by that door. I think we are going to be needing to add fill over that trench for a few years as the dirt they filled it with continues to settle.
This spring, after the snow melted away, the ground had dropped down so much that the first step out of the back door had become a real doozy. I have slowly been filling that trench with the dirt and manure that was raked into piles in the paddock at the end of winter. I got the idea to use that for fill from the fact that the piles ended up being more dirt than manure. Still, I am putting poop on the yard as fill. How unsanitary is that?
The last few rain events interrupted the composting process on my main pile, by getting everything too wet. I’m using the oldest portion at the end of the pile anyway. It can dry out where I spread it to fill the depression caused by the trench.
You might be able to discern how I have segmented the pile to create sections with differing stages of composting. I think it would work, if I had a roof over it to control the moisture.
Not gonna happen. Not for a while, anyway. I’ve still got a woodshed to rebuild before I embark on any other roof constructing projects.
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Shifting Priorities
I have not attempted to do anything with the remains of the woodshed yet. Since it wasn’t raining yesterday afternoon, I stepped out to take some more pictures.
It is too heavy to lift on my own, so I will either need a lot of helpers to pick it back up or use the power of our diesel tractor. The problem with relying on the tractor is that I can’t drive it back there until the ground dries up enough to support it. Not that it’s really a problem. I have plenty of other things to work on while I wait to be able to drive the tractor around on our property.
I have noticed a strong desire to get back to clearing the south drainage ditch, but the lawn grass that we try to keep mowed around the driveway and township road is growing so fast I was forced to make that the next priority. It is a rather challenging task right now because of how wet it is. I tried to stay off the worst areas, but still found myself getting stuck a few times, and leaving muddy tire tracks in my wake. Regardless, it looks better mowed with a few tracks, than it does not-mowed at all.
Clearing the south ditch is not the only thing clamoring for my attention, either. Over the weekend I started creating a spot by our labyrinth to use for storing compost that we plan to feed the growing things we have planted. I have been ever-so-slowly replacing the concrete landscaping blocks Cyndie bought for marking the first layout of the labyrinth, with stones we have been collecting from around our property. I am going to build a 3-walled nook using the landscape blocks pulled from the labyrinth, to contain the compost.
Of course, to haul manure back there I will need the ATV and trailer, but I can’t get in the paddocks with that equipment until it dries up some and Cyndie gets off crutches to open gates and manage horses while I drive in and out.
That’ll probably happen about the time I will need to switch priorities again to mow the rapidly growing lawn grass everywhere. It’s a great exercise for the part of me that wants to do everything in a sequence. I get to flex my flexibility skills, instead.
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Trailering Poop
We finally put our new ATV trailer to use for cleaning the paddocks. The ground seemed to dry up quite a bit yesterday, so we took advantage of the opportunity to drive inside the fences and made fair progress on removing more of the winter’s-worth of accumulation. We have been working in steps, cleaning small sections at a time as they become dry enough. Using the ATV in place of a wheelbarrow increases our capacity nicely, and while working to prove the concept, we knocked off a new portion in each of the two paddocks.
I am pleased with the horses comfort around motorized equipment. They are not intimidated in the least by the rumbling engines of the tractor or ATV. We left them roaming free inside the paddocks as Cyndie opened a gate for me to drive in. Here is a shot I took of Legacy as he stepped in close to check on the quality of my work.
We have yet to figure out the ideal method of unloading the trailer. The main location where we have been putting manure for compost has gotten rather tall, and isn’t currently situated so that I could drive up and over it. I have created a ramp within the pile that allows me to roll the wheelbarrow up and around for dumping, but that isn’t sized for the ATV trailer.
It was decided that we would expand our compost operation to multiple locations, placing more of the product in proximity to where it will likely be used. With the wheelbarrow, it didn’t make sense to go traipsing around the property to unload, but now with the ATV that is not a problem.
The first place we picked was across the driveway, up among the pine trees. There are enough trees there alone that we can probably spread the majority of our collection in that vicinity. We do want to provide a modest amount somewhere near the labyrinth garden, too, but Cyndie is concerned that it be far enough away so as not to disturb the pleasant ambiance we are trying to develop there. I think that can be achieved.
It feels good to be making gains on the cleanup of the paddocks as they begin to dry. Too bad today I am called away to the day-job and Wednesday is shaping up to be another winter storm. Poop trailering is on hold for a while again. It’s spring, two steps forward, one step back. We’ll get there, eventually.
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Relative Something 