Compost

The moon must still be in deep-feeling Scorpio.  JOTS is comfortably asleep on the slantboard, Pete is in the vardo in exactly that same place.  I've been asleep earlier in the cycle of things.  It's very early morning here in the forest.  The dark sky hiding the stars brought instead a fine mist of rain.  Tucked under the ease of the quonset I sat with a hot mug of water and felt the all.

We have received news from home that unsettled me.  Even though I'd already been alerted by the stars of the possibility, I am human with a gigantic capacity for feeling or feeding on feelings so you could say I'm composting.  Sitting outside, the rain gently caressed.  It's easy to be in prayer when the darkness is sweet and the quiet a soft companion. 

Distance becomes less physical when I am being with all of it, comfortable with the present the grief of vulnerability moves and that is good.  The thick soft cotton pancho kept me warm and dry, the
 air precious I felt thoughts rising or digesting and it was worms that came to mind.  Compost, worms, composting worms.

Back inside the quonset, the laptop took me here to string together these musings about Compost:

First,  a few WORM FACTS

Earth workers work at depths in the soil. They generally move and create burrows in a horizontal fashion but may come to the surface to gather food, hence distributing surface nutrients to various depths. Often quite large, their burrows channel water and air well below the topsoil. While earth workers have an important role in the soil, they are not suitable in your compost.

What you need are compost worms. These worms thrive in a rich environment and usually live near the surface creating burrows vertically between the surface litter and the safety zone of the soil under.


The conditions you need in your compost are simply the appropriate safety zone, breeding conditions, moisture and predator protection for worms that will thrive on the varied diet of domestic waste.

Anatomy

Worms are basically a very efficient digestive tube. Food (your waste) goes in one end and comes out the other as plant food (castings). They have no eyes, ears or nose but a rather large, toothless mouth which inverts itself over a piece of food, then retracts to push the food directly into the digestive system.

Worms have an in-built ability to sustain the optimum population according to the available food and space. While conditions are right, they will breed at full potential until the desired food and space ratio is reached. This is an excellent scenario in a compost situation as the more food you add, the more they populate.

A worm's circulatory system is controlled by several simple hearts pumping blood to a ventral vessel, a dorsal vessel and capillaries. They have a very sensitive nervous system of which the setae are major sensors and a tiny, insignificant brain.

Although their anatomy is very simple, worms are one of the strongest animals on Earth for their size and have been around for 600 million years!

Source:  http://www.compostworms.com/id4.html

Next, a bit of Synthesis (human compost)

ORGANIC Compost Gardens

We bought organic broccoli and cauliflower starts a month ago and set them in the compost. I water them daily, sometimes twice a day when it gets real hot ... using our dish-cleaning soap water alternating with just pure sweet well water (with no fluoride or chloride added). I talk with them on the way to the big house, cheer them on to 'grow happy' and LOOK AT THE VOLUNTEER company that showed up.

The bed is filled with organic potato plants and organic squash of all sorts (we don't know and can't wait to see who shows up in come harvest time.)
This bed has the one organic marigold flower we just brought home from Seattle. More potatoes and squash, and silly us we buy zucchini starts ... and now there're all kinds of squash cousins tay boot! A few sunflower seeds have sprouted too so we hope for a riot of compatibility and deliciousness.

We've been on the Ledge for nearly nine weeks ... nine weeks! The pic above are the raised beds Pete built from the scrap lumber (fir untreated 2X4's) left over from the building of our friends' home.

Beneath the black plastic bags split in two was the beautiful year old organic compost we collect and tended while we lived in Seattle. The wonderful worms truly did dig it ... Because look at those garden beds NOW (two top photos).

Growing our own organic food is a major bit of our dream come true. The time it takes once you have a raised bed or two:

5 minutes a day take food scraps to compost pile
5 minutes every week turn the compost
5 minutes every week wet down the compost pile if it hasn't rained
15 minutes a day water and chat with the veggies

I add lots more time in any given day every chance I get.
Living on the ledge has slowed time down for us.
The quiet, the sound of winds and the sight of tree skin makes time timeless.
Earth is good. We find our place with time and find there is space for us.

Thanks Akua, thanks dirt, thanks seeds, thanks bees, bugs and fairies.