Adventures in composting

If you recall, we have added a LOT of food to our compost bin. Over 500 jars of old food. It's breaking down. Each time I add more stuff (my kitchen scraps usually) to the pile, the whole ground moves in waves as if it's alive. Kind of creepy. I had thrown in some corn cobs yesterday and again today, I threw one last one in.

This one was taken at around noon. The fresh cob is nice and bright.

This one was taken about 30 minutes later. Now, the whole cob is covered in some kind of larvae.

You need all those insects since they help to break stuff down quicker. All that life means it's very healthy. :o) I'm just glad it's back beyond the dog's yard because I don't want all the flies in my house.

jar brain

I just had to show this to you! You see that one jar with a whitish thing on top of the orangish stuff? That is what I have dubbed "jar brain". It's from the seal breaking and little beasties getting in and multiplying. I have no idea what organism makes this monstrosity but I know I don't want to eat it!

Well, let's take a close look at jar brain, shall we? It is so wrong!!! It's thick and fleshy...feels like a tongue, only much more slimy.

So, yesterday's count was 97 jars and 155 cans. Plus a bunch of empty ones that will get recycled. We're hoping that we can take the metal cans to the recycler for a little bit of money.

The cans are interesting as well. Some have burst open and there is nothing left in them. Some have gotten tiny pin prick holes in them over the years and the contents have dehydrated in the can....some come out black and moldy. The apple sauce dehydrated and came out in this little discs.

The mold on some of these was so bad that the cans were actually fused together.

This jar project has definitely been an interesting adventure!

compost and canning jars

Adam's friend's mom has a room in her house called the fruit room. It's basically where the food storage has been kept over the years. It was abandoned for some reason and they started storing their food somewhere else in the basement. Adam has been helping James clean out the house after his father's death a month ago. Adam mentioned the room to me. He told me there were 200-400 jars of home canned food that is no longer any good. Ann wants to get rid of it and did I want the jars? Who would turn down that offer? Not me! The catch was that we had to empty out the jars before I could use them. Luckily, Adam built me that much bigger than planned on compost bin. It will make fine compost! The oldest jar we've found so far was from 1964!!!

We went one evening after work to collect the first round of jars. We got 244 jars and that was only about 1/3 of the total jars in that room! Unfortunately, a lot of them are old condiment jars that she reused, even with the original (not canning) lids. I won't be canning in those so they are no good to me.

We carried just over half the bins over to the compost pile and started working. Adam unscrewed the lids and bands. I pried the canning lids off and emptied. We worked at it for about 4 hours.


Look at how old and vintage these lids are!


These 3 are my favorites. I have a couple of the sliver ones. I am hoping they come off in one piece because I have a DIY project in mind for those.


We had a wedding reception to go to so we quit before finishing. We had about 40 jars left to open and empty. But this is what food from 200 jars gets you. Much less than we were expecting... Well, we still have 400 more to add to that. Oddly, nothing stunk. Some came out like molasses, others had already turned to dirt inside the jar. Almost every jar still smelled exactly like what it was. I wouldn't have expected that since most of the jars were from the 60's to 1970.


We sorted the jars to keepable and those to be recycled. The recycle ones went in one large bin while the keepable ones got a quick rinse off from the hose. I think I got to keep about 40 of them.

Poor Adam got a giant blister on the palm of his hand from opening the stuck on lids and bands and he was wearing thick leather gloves! I tried taking over but I was much too weak to get those open.

the handyman strikes again

I feel like I'm really behind on posting the stuff we've been up to. Maybe it's not true, maybe we haven't been up to that much, we'll see. I am goingto be posting a lot until I feel I've run out of stuff we've done though.

This Saturday, Adam made a handle for the gate that leads to the area with the clothesline. He picked out a 2x4 in the garage and cut this out on a band saw. I think it's pretty cool that I have a one of a kind handle. :o)



Also, I mentioned in another post that Adam built a composting bin for me and I realized recently that I never actually posted pics of it. I figured this would be a good post to add it to.

It's 4' in all directions. The gate is off for the pic.


The latching system is one that Adam thought up himself. He made the bin with all 4 posts in front (2 top, 2 bottom) hanging over a few inches. He cut a notch out of each post. The gate rests in the notches and it stays securely in place but is still easy to take off.

He's got some good dieas rolling around up there!

worker bee

Adam's been busy getting lots of little projects done since he's not very busy with towing. A few nights ago, while I was busy working the garden, he pulled out his saws and ripped some boards for another project for me. He had an idea of how he wanted it done, and I had a different idea for it...which isn't unusual for us. He took what I told him and incorporated most of it but thought of his own unique gate closure system. He didn't explain to me how it would work, just that I would like it. Part of what he did required the use of hand tools...strange, I thought, since he prefers power tools. But I wasn't able to find out exactly how it would work until a couple days later when he had a chance to work on it again. What is it, you ask? Well, it's a composting bin. I don't have a picture of it yet though. He and a friend finished it yesterday and carried it to the backyard and placed it over my already existing compost pile (just piled on the ground with no containment). He was right, the gate closure it pretty nifty and the bin is very solid...and large! Pictures to follow. He also built the gate for the fence we put up in front of the clothesline and dug the dirt out so I could open the gate. It's on a hill and the ground was in the way.

Visits & soup

Yesterday, I loaded the trailer with all the things to be recycled that I have been gathering for about 4 months. It filled the trailer and it even filled the trunk. After I unloaded all but the things I was taking to Jared and Debbie's, I headed down to Spanish Fork and visited with the Mendoza's. I taught them how to play graces but I don't think they liked it as much as I do. Valerie scared me by saying there was a fire in the grill where she was cooking. It just turned out to be a lot of smoke. Valerie, Alex and I carried the mattress and box spring to the trailer. I drove up to Heather and Tom's and Heather helped me carry it into the house (I hope you were able to get it into the bedroom, Heather). I visited with her for a couple of hours before heading over to drop off a bunch of plastic bags and some newspapers for packing fragile things. I stayed there for about an hour before heading home.

I've been trying to be more creative with my leftovers so I don't have to eat the same thing 4-5 nights in a row. I bought country ribs to use in the scrapple but I only used half of them. I cooked up the rest of the ribs and ate those for a couple of nights but I got sick of it. I went online and found a recipe for soup using leftover pork. It was really good!! I don't generally like anything too spicy but I loved this soup.

GREEN CHILE CHILI

1 pound cooked pork, cubed
1 tablespoon flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup choped onions
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (16 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (7 oz) can diced green chiles
1/4 teaspoon oregano
salt to taste
2 cups water

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add onion and garlic and cook until onion is tender. Do not allow garlic to brown.

Add flour and cook until golden.

Add cooked pork and remaining ingredients. Simmer, covered, 1 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Remove cover. Simmer, uncovered, 5 to 10 minutes to desired consistency.



Also, I've been trying to be as conscientious as I can about what I throw away. I recycle all the plastic that is recycleable here, glass, cans, bags, paper & newspaper but one thing I haven't been doing is saving food scraps (or rotten food) to throw into the field. Ideally, it would be put in a compost pile but I don't have one of those right now so the field has to do. So today, when I found the dogs treats had mold growing on them, I started saving the scraps and cleaned out the fridge. I'll be dumping it before I go to bed tonight. When I get settled in Boise, I'll see if I can find any red wigglers to start a compost bin.



On a sad note, Adam's dad fell from a ladder this week and broke a rib and his arm. He'll be going into surgery to have a steel rod put into his arm on Tuesday. I'm sure he could use everyone's prayers for a fast recovery.