Monthly Archives: May 2009

Blow by blow: compost tumbler assembly

(Update: If you want to know how to do this quickly, stop reading and check out the Assembly Video at Organic Compost Tumbler. You'll find it in the menu at the bottom of the page.)

Tumbler: pieces and parts

Vegetable oil at the ready, I’m poised to assemble my new composter, the one all the folderol was about a couple of weeks back. It's mine courtesy of  Chris of Organic Compost Tumbler in exchange for a review, which won't happen until I've had a chance to put it through its paces.

This Urban Tumbler started its tumbling career early, before it even got out of the box. Boxes, to be precise, as there were two. The wheelbarrow being otherwise engaged, I had to get them into the backyard without the benefit of wheels. I could just get my arms around the smaller one, so off we went together, traveling sideways so I could see approximately where we were going. The bigger one, which contains the tumbler itself, its two halves nested, isn’t outrageously heavy, but it’s so bulky I had to roll it. Of course, I could have put the pieces together and rolled the tumbler itself, but my eagerness  didn’t allow for such rational steps. The back yard is the designated assembly center, and all assembly shall occur there, dang it.

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Belated update: prairies and garden plots

Sally's tree2

No time for reading blogs, no time for posting—what is the world coming to? I should have posted over a week ago about an upcoming trip, but I had this foolish idea that I’d be able to post while away. Yes I know, ridiculous. My husband can manage it, but he only needs six hours of sleep a night.

I’ve been in Wisconsin and Minnesota for the past week. The original reason for the trip is far from jolly—Steve’s step-mother of 25 years just died, quite suddenly, of complications from cancer treatment, and in an bizarre turn of events, her disabled but independent son died five days later. It was a sad time, but a good gathering of friends and family.

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Non-compost-mentis

So here’s the question for the day, people: can I turn a compost tumbler that’s a great fit for someone who’s almost two feet taller than I am? Let me explain.

Just yesterday afternoon I closed a deal with Chris of Backyard Gardening Blog to review what he modestly calls the World's Greatest Organic Compost Tumbler. Now, my first reaction to most offers is to say no, absolutely not, but, well, Chris made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: he’d give me a tumbler in exchange for an honest review, a promise not to sue him if it turns out that I can’t rotate the thing, and my next child. This decision required careful consideration, but after about three seconds I went with the tumbler. (Please don’t tell him I’m 55 and past all that childbearing business.)

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BGMD In Praise of Seasons

   Pink and white carnations—one desires
    So much more than that.

            Wallace Stevens
            “The Poems of Our Climate”

        I.
Moving back
to Minnesota? say friends
in L.A., in New York.
They try not to sound rude,
but they fail;
their voices soar and drop
like ill-flown kites in spotty wind.
They think we are out of our minds.

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Spring birds

Robin in flight

Despite the snow, the robins returned, en masse. I have never seen them in such numbers. When I drove down the alley behind my house, five, ten, a dozen would lift off from the puddles left by melting snow. Nor had I known until then that they ate juniper berries.

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