if you either post a thread asking people to post photos of their compost piles or if you post said photo.

And then you are planning what time the light would be best to take a more current photo.

This gets really bad when 3 composting friends are there too.

You have a nosebleed, but you don't mind. Cuz you think, oh boy, I can put my bloody tissue in the pile!

But I have secret bit of silver lining! I got the wood pallet, the nicely reinforced wooden square (about 2'x 2')that packed the top of the condenser, and two very big cardboard boxes that are already flattened and laid down with this morning SB run and a bag of leaves.

I wish they'd hurry up so I can run to Lowes for hardware cloth and rig it up on that square for a compost screen. I don't think I'll ever actually screen my compost, but darned if I haven't always wanted a compost screen......

>Enjoying the deadheading because you get to add something to the compost pile.

>Rescuing 4 strawberry tops from the disposal after breakfast.

>Making the kids save their napkins for the compost.

>Pulling out the paper shredder for the newspapers to help them break down even faster.

> Raking the Eucalyptus leaves off of the lawn so that they don't contaminate the grass clippings.

> Posting a photo of your compost pile.

> Viewing that photo with pride and then fighting the urge to go turn the pile before dinner.

>Posting in a Compost forum

>Reading posts about compost.

You know it's a sickness, right?

Also, when eating out with friends and family they just automatically hand over the lettuce decorating their plates and the lemons from their drinks, so I can pack it away in my little bags.

the other day, I was *delighted* to see half a cucumber on the parking lot!

I picked it up & tossed it into the car & it's now rotting peacefully in the compost heap.

unless the dogs dragged it out to play with.

& if they have, that's okay:
it can rot wherever they drop it.

Apparently it's one thing to discreetly pack away the lime and garnish from your lunch. It's an entirely different thing to ask your friends for their limes and garnishes.

Yes, they humored me, but I think they seriously thought about whether I should be put under some sort of observation.

Oopsie. 8-D

"There's a fine line between hobby & mental illness."

I've gotten so far over that line I can't even see it in the rearview mirror!

bwaaaa haaaaaa haaaaa!

I ask you to picture the scene: A small farm, where you can pick your own raspberries and apples. The Macs and other apples look delicious hanging there on the trees, and everyone is picking fruit.

Everyone but me. What am I doing? With the owner's OK, I'm crawling around under the trees scooping up rotting and rotted apples. I'm scrambling round the beds that had grown vegetables, shoveling rotted cantaloupes, peppers, and squashes into boxes and bags.

I had a blast!

"crawling around under the trees scooping up rotting and rotted apples"

Welcome to Wacko-dom, north & lynxe!

Bwaaa Haaaa Haaaa Haaa!

if you're posting to this thread, you're so far over that line you can't even remember it (& you prolly covered it with leaves & grass clippings anyway!)

I do love Punkin season!
seems like it was last autumn I read a message on another board titled something like "What's Wrong With Kids Today?"

The poster was lamenting their lack of a sense of mischief because she couldn't find any smashed punkins in her neighborhood!

What? Doesn't everyone do that?
:)

it's pronounced ornge.

but, yeah, them thangs.

Hereabouts, people use ornge punkins & red & green Christmas decorations & real trees (wonderful for composters who have a big enough vehicle!)

The scene -- an Oktoberfest celebration this past Sunday, at a local brewery.

The heroine -- Me aka The Cween of Compost

The evil villain -- The poor, well-meaning guy behind the food table.

Evil Villain (smiling in friendly way and gesturing to my paper plate, which contains remnants of not-very-good pulled pork sandwich), "Here, I'll take that for you."

Cween of Compost (smiling back all the while hugging paper plate and dripping pork to her side protectively), "No, thanks, that's OK."

EV (gesturing more strongly, and in direction of garbage can), "No, really, I'll take it."

CC, "No, *really*, I'm fine."

EV (sounding increasingly puzzled and just a tad irked?), "We have a garbage can RIGHT HERE."

CC, "It's OK....REALLY."

EV's Somewhat Puzzled Coworker (now holding out HER hand), "I can throw that away for you."

CC, who has placed plate and dripping pork IN HER PURSE and is now standing there grinning like an idiot, "Thanks anyway!"

EV (rolling eyes at SPC), "She says she's fine."

EV and SPC slide eyes toward beer table and then smile at each other and snicker a bit.

CC walks away in complete, although a tad messy, triumph....but not without asking first EV for that empty cardboard board box over there under the table!

Having curb-shopped compost materials for several years, I've finally overcome my natural shyness (snork!), & I just tell people straight out I use the paper/leaves/whatever in my garden.

Last night when I stopped at the beer store for boxes for a garden swap, a young clerk was wheeling a shopping cart (shopping cart? some of their customers must buy a *lot* of beer!) full of flattened cardboard boxes out to the dumpster.

I parked the car & hopped out & hollered, "Waaait! Are those going to the re-cycler or are they just trash?"

'just trash.'

"well, can I have 'em? I use them in the garden."

As he was *filling* the trunk with boxes, he asked me what I did in the garden that involved flattened cardboard boxes.

so I told him.

He was dazzled, absolutely dazzled.

(I bet he takes some boxes to his mother or grandmother, though, to make her weeding easier.)

Asking new friends if you can have those straw bales sitting on their porch when Halloween is over - without seeming too weird. Now they have fake pumpkins on top of straw. I promised organic lettuce and spinach next spring. Piegirl

Tomorrow I get to go clean my mothers garden out, and it has to be done before Halloween---she is one of those, "nothing stays" people--not a leaf is allowed to be left (and her soil shows it). So, I'll haul lots of garbage bags of cuttings/leaves, etc 130 miles to compost.

Drink more coffee all--I need more coffee grounds! *our Starbucks stops the GFG program on 10/1*

Several years ago, my mother asked me to come rake up her leaves.

She lived 55 miles away, but I went & raked up those leaves, some of which came from pecan trees my uncle had planted when he returned home from WWII.

I brought the leaves home & scattered them over my alkaline clay, worn out cow pasture of a yard...

This year, I got the first pecans from the descendants of my uncle's pecan trees.

Kitty Girl grabs a small mouse as you are standing near Big Baby and you think - hmmm - eating organic???

You name your pile - mine is Big Baby. Piegirl

I've cut up some of my sons %100 cotton undies that he out grew, not the type of hand me down any body wants. They go in the core mixed w/ veggie waste and are gone in a few days.

...you think about the stuff composting out in the pile on those bad insomnia nights. And it soothes you into sleep and sweet dreams.

You are probably a compost whacko...

When you are the only one at the town composting site that you've ever noticed taking away bags of leaves and grass clippings instead of dropping them off. Other people look at you strangely but the attendant at the site just smiles cuz he sees you there every week or 2 throughout the season.

And you delight in climbing around this ginormous stinky pile, to find the "purest" grass clippings and leaves (those without sticks, garden debris, trimmings, etc). And picking up some extra paper leaf bags to use for lasagne beds.

And you are REALLY thrilled when you find 2 partially decomposed bales of straw that are still tied up and easy to load!

And then you notice that somebody dumped a whole bag of walnuts, raked up from their walnut tree, and you grab some of those too, thinking that they might actually be edible, or you might want to try to sprout a walnut tree. Guess I'm a seed-starting gardening whacko too. 8-)

not that clever but made me laugh a lot, even if I am dreading the clearing of the mess.

d

-if you actually enjoy shovelling wood shavings into bags for layering in the Compost Bin

-if you are really pleased with your DH when he helps with the Lasagna Bed (even tho he thot it was a really goofy idea initially)

-if you capitalize Compost Pile, Compost Bin, and Lasagna Bed!

Also, ensure that you are able to connect sad device to a computer. :)

Sylvia--the finger still hurts, but not quite as bad--typing is not much fun though!

And no, I don't feel at all wacky! LOL :) Only kind of mad scientist-ish. hahahehe

It usually means dear wife, what does dw mean here?

"dishwasher"!

Kath
Will just have to make do

me?

A friend once told a whole roomful of guests that if sylvia says, "I'm cleaning my oven", it means...
sylvia is dusting!

As for leaves today---3 bags shredded @ 10/1----I use 35 gal bags, so would equal 30 bags whole leaves-wow, thats allot of leaves! Plus got another bag of UCG from Starbucks and monday----so excited----get all the pumpkins I care to haul home (yeah==they're ernge ones, mostly)

:) ;) :) ;) Please send some gnomes as I won't be turning my compost til about April as it's covered with snow altho I'm still give it "gifts".

Snow's all gone I'm sure the gnomes will love it here! However, in the meantime I really should be out there turning my compost piles instead of in here goofing off.

You do keep your wits about you and say your thing, but all the while, you're buggy eyed with lust because you've noticed within about the first quarter second or so that they're GROOMING RABBITS!

And then you ask them what they do with the stuff from the cages. And then you actually ask them whether you can come back for it.

You know you've been successful - not because they're for your candidate, but because they say yes to your request!

Maybe when I come back I can post some pictures of my favorite gnomes and make you jealous.

It was the cat, yeah thats right, the cat did it.

LOL

d

A derivative question: Anyone have any idea of what makes composting so darn pleasurable? Serious here

Sassy

You were thrilled to learn that some neighbors had ordered 35 pheasant hatchlings, which will arrive sometime in March.

You are trying to find a way to tactfully ask the person in charge of the grounds of the federal installation you work at what they do with the bark and leaves that the 16 HUGE sycamore trees shed.

You take a plastic bag with you on you walks at lunch and collect long-needle pine to mulch your blueberry bushes with. You should see the looks I get from the grounds crew on that one.

I am jealous!

auntyara, I don't know of a support group for spouses & families, but if there were such a thing, I'd recommend that you not tell 'em.

far better for you & the garden & the planet to get your nearest & dearest to become one of instead!

better to get your nearest & dearest to become one *of us*!

-if you carry your used paper towel from drying your hands in the restrooms and break rooms at work and bring them home for The Pile.

-You have your boyfriend trained to scoot the lemon wedges and lime segments my way when we're out to eat. (Said boyfriend has also been known to carry abandoned pumpkins on his walk home from work.)

-A tour of your new home is not complete without a visit to the compost pile and a peek inside.

-Your name was printed in the local newspaper in the same sentence as "composter."

Sassy

You might be a compost wacko if you quote compost wackos!

Wisht I had a Valentine like that!

Oooo, that's gotta hurt.

Lloyd

Check it out at:
Smith Family Garden

Spring is almost here. Happy composting!

Thanks for the nice comments. We had a lot of fun making the video.

-Chris

after reading these forums you feel empowered enough to snatch & grab the bagged leaves from the employee parking lot while holding your head high.

after snatching said bags you squeal in glee to discover earthworms have been stranded underneath.

being now knowledgeable about said earthworms you know it is your duty to rescue them and so you snatch & grab them as well to be relocated in your garden,thereby liberating them from certain death.

You join the aforementioned forum so you can brag about your latest compost conquest :)

Yay!

& welcome to Wacko-dom.
(Wacko-ness?
Wacko-ism?)

and all the rest of these whackos have been talkin to to their piles for years....its like a free therapy...

but keep on keepin on ....R

I think we all win.

shredding paper and ripping up cardboard and newspaper calms you more than taking a Valium:)

OR

you watch a movie or TV show and notice the food more than the actors or the plot, and wonder if they compost the stuff after they are done filming:)

you hit multiple Starbucks for UCGs multiple times in a single day.

btw, that's hilarious about watching something and being more interested in the compostability of items than the plot of what you're watching. I caught myself doing that just last night hehe.

I kept looking at that gorgeous big pink cabbage rose in front of one of the houses!

& I've caught myself wondering who collects the scraps at cooking shows & the threads & itsy-bitsy fabric scraps on quilting & sewing shows...

Curt:-) Lets all be a little greener.

if you spend a half hour afterwards daydreaming about your pile's diversity.

you're pumped because you finally have enough fall leaves to run over with your lawn mower, just so you can set it aside for next year.

"You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."

as you throw a dead rat into the pile!

Bwaa Ha Ha

Martha

What's even wackier is that I then took a picture to post on the 'net!

Ah, leaves, lovely leaves.

I was a bit disappointed there were no old pumpkins around. Will check again next time we're in town.

I went to my wife's work to help her out on some stuff (she has a bad rotator cuff so I go to help on the keyboard typing for her).

On the way we were at a red light and I realised that next to me was one of those document shredding trucks and behind me was a truck with the the huge tree shredders on back. I had no idea if either truck had a load or not but I sat at that red light and tried to figure out if I could ram the shredder truck off the side of the road and still block the tree truck from getting past me until I could relive both trucks of their load........... weird.....

In the end I grabbed a full truck load of leaves from my wifes work (forgot I had no bags in the truck so I just thru them in loose, thank god I have a shell on my truck!)

I think I am only a mild or moderate wacko. :( I'll have to work on that.

I don't collect compost from restaurants yet, but some of my friends send vegetable waste home with me from parties. :)

I also got a load of the "guts" after the Halloween Pumpkin Shoot and after the Pumpkin Carving Party. I am still finding pumpkin seeds in my car. I had sprouts in my pile until the first frost; I guess it is not hot enough.

Jean Marie

Wow, you 'Mericans will hunt anything!!! Do you have to like set up blinds or decoys? I already assumed there is a "season" for this.

:-)

Lloyd