Holiday Progress

It doesn’t look like much, but we did actually accomplish more than stuffing our faces with carnitas over the July 4th holiday.  We have finally had a break from the Nashville Monsoon so I could finish that pesky spot of deck floor staining.

The old railings were really getting in the way of completing the stain job, so, even though we don’t have the hog panel yet, buh bye.

We’ve kept up the support posts since we will reuse them, but now we are thinking of rebuilding and widening the stairs.  We didn’t change them when they added onto the deck since they were attached to the old section and were perfectly fine.  We’ve got some planning and potential reconfiguring to do….of course…UGH!

So while deck progress is now at a potential screeching halt, the CC tackled a little work on the compost pile…

We are now using it although far from done…he has finished one gate, but could only find the ugliest hinges ever.  He has promised to paint/camouflage them since we grudgingly conceded that mail order stainless hinges were not required for a compost pile….although it would look SO much better.

AND, groan…we started to deal with the fallen tree.  One solid day of heat and sawdust.  I dragged branches to the road and stacked future firewood while the CC got all manly with the chainsaw.  There’s more to do, but what’s left is hidden from public view in the jungle so we can take our time finishing up.

We were so exhausted after that day…we packed up Thing One and Thing Two and headed to the pool.  I cracked out an old find from the depths…I think these were my dad’s.  Love ’em…even though the Things thought they looked “funny”.  I was too whipped to care if I looked “funny” in them or not.

Compost

Forest = leaves, and LOTS of them, since 99.9% of the trees on the property are deciduous.  We need to build our compost enclosure so I can start feeding my new plants some home grown goodness.

It is tempting to go all out and do something like this…

FOUR bins.  That’s some SERIOUS composting…the blog One Straw gives details on how to here.

But it has to be pretty as well as functional….that one above is great, but I don’t want to look at that.  Why does a composting bin have to be ugly?  Now this looks nice…..

Found this one on Nature Moms….only one bin…but attractive.  Don’t know if it gets enough air circulation though.  Now if we were really creative…and rich, we could knock out two projects in one with this…..

The Comploo.  It’s part composter, part igloo..and supposedly, is heated inside by the cooking compost.  Hmmm….It’s being hailed as an alternative Japanese Tea House…or in our case, a grounded tree house.  I love the idea….but the only tea I could think of in there would be compost tea, and I don’t wanna drink that, thanks.  It HAS to smell…no?  Not to mention the fact you can’t turn that “heat” off in the summer….Ooh..maybe it becomes a Japanese sauna in the summer?  Ahhhh…Spa ModFruGal….free your body of toxins while surrounding yourself with rotting organic matter…and worms, if you’re lucky…. I digress.

How about we just go with something that will be in keeping with what we already have going? We’ve tried the plastic tumblers in the past with lame results, so let’s just build one with the wood salvaged from the deck work.

Behold…the 2 sides of the future compost palace. (Compalace!)  recreating the look of the new slats at the front.

The CC started building this over the weekend…It will be a simple 2 bin system so we can have one side cooking while the other gets filled.  Ideally, form and function will work in perfect harmony.  And don’t think it didn’t occur to me that if he hadn’t diligently stained it…I’d have had enough left to finish the deck.  Eh, we would have needed more anyway….and it DID rain yesterday..I TOLD YOU.