Our son Travis has been a bad influence on Terry. There was a time when she was a mild-mannered weaver/crocheter/spinner who was happy being surrounded by fibers of every color. But since we moved here to Alabama, Travis has convinced her that she needs to be a farmer, so now she’s constantly talking about fertilizers, topsoil, composting, and things like that. By the way, bags of fertilizer and topsoil take a lot more work to carry in from the back of the pickup than a few skeins of yarn ever did.
Anybody who knows anything about gardening knows that composting is a great way to improve your soil while also being kind to the earth. Travis and his wife Geli are really into that, with a couple of big composting bins behind their pole barn.
Terry wanted to ease into things, so she started out with a stainless steel Utopia kitchen countertop compost bin, a small 1.3 gallon unit. She said when she ordered it from Amazon that she thought she would outgrow that pretty quickly, and she did.
So her next addition into the world of composting was a 43 gallon Vivosun outdoor tumbling composter with dual rotating bins. It arrived a few days ago and yesterday she decided to assemble it out on our back deck.
The first step was to lay everything out and check the parts list to make sure nothing was missing. Not only was everything there, but they even included some extra screws, just in case she lost one or two along the way.
Satisfied that she had everything she needed, Terry sent me back inside to write and keep me out from underfoot while she was putting it together. If I was hanging around, there’s a sure bet that something would get lost. She always says the best way I can help her is to not help her. 😊
It took her about an hour to finish the project, and we were both very impressed with how well it seems to be made. Somebody put a lot of thought into its design.
We moved it out next to the wooden shed in our backyard that will be used for gardening tools and supplies. It’s far enough away from the house that we won’t be bothered by odors or insects attracted to the compost, but yet convenient to the house when Terry has vegetable scraps she wants to put in it.
While she was busy with that, I was back on Tinder Street, getting another couple thousand words written in my new book. Then I read through and corrected several chapters before printing them out for Terry to begin the editing and proofreading process.
Congratulations Wilmer D. Olsen, winner of our drawing for an autographed copy of Bad JuJu in Cleveland by the late Karl Bort, with Thelka Madsen. When Detective Nicholas Silvano is called to an abandoned house on Cleveland’s east side where four men have been brutally slain, he finds himself involved in a complicated case of drugs, murder, and voodoo! When FBI Agent James Reis begins creating roadblocks at every turn, Silvano teams up with DEA Agent Charley Goetz on a manhunt that takes them from Cleveland to Florida, in an investigation where the stakes become higher when the killer makes it personal, forcing Nick to face feelings he’d been denying for too long.
We had 45 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.
And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.
Thought For The Day – I’m having deja vu and amnesia at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nina and I built a two-stage composting “station.” It was built of cedar, and each bin was 4′ X 4′ X 4′ wide, high and long. Your first year, use one side only and deposit kitchen fruit and vegetable trimmings any time, but for your other deposits such and grass and leaves, small twigs, dead brown weeds, etc. use the old rule of layering one, then the other, or green-brown, green-brown, etc. For bulkier stuff such as wood twigs up to a few inches, buy a good chipper/shredder. When the first bin is full, THAT BIN, then “rests” and “works” for a year as you do the same for the second bin You may need some lime at one point, and/or can have your now one-year-old compost tested to verify that it’s ready to spread, laid on, or mixed in Terry’s garden! To super-charge the composting, add a few dozen nightcrawlers and red worms. You have now accomplished two things: [1] “Terry’s Garden” should flourish, and [2] Nick will have a good supply of happy worms to go fishing! PS It’s been a long time since that very first Gypsy Rally in Lake City, FL! Best wishes to both of you and keep those books coming!