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Having a compost pile is something we have been looking forward to since we bought the house. For awhile I stopped keeping my food scraps completely. We’d moved further away from the community garden and I was just not in the mood to keep it up. Back in September Chris decided that we could start a makeshift compost pile in a ratty trash can left by the previous homeowners. I rinsed it out and we stuck it on the side of the storage shed/carport and I started the pile by throwing in the weeds I collected from clearing out the vegetable bed area on the south side of the house.

The weed pile filled up the entire garbage can but within a couple of weeks the weeds had compacted down and started degrading quickly. Slowly I’d throw in items here and there and we’ve been adding to it ever since.

Over the last weekend Chris and I finally decided where to put our permanent compost pile, somewhere accessible and somewhat hidden from street view. We disagreed on a few places and then finally settled on removing the brick outdoor grill that had to have been built when the house was built in 1979. There was a Pepsi can that pretty much aged the thing. I really liked the grill but in reality we weren’t going to use it and the space was better suited for the compost pile.

Chris used a sledgehammer and slowly broke the bricks apart and we created a pile to the side to haul to the dump on a future weekend. I’d thought we could attempt to use the bricks later but they crumbled or broke too easily. Our progress was slowed when we arrived to the base of the fireplace and found concrete. The bricks weren’t going anywhere. I thought perhaps we could just leave the base and put most of the compost pile over it but the compost area won’t cover the entire slab and would eventually look a little tacky.

So. We’re going to have to rent a jackhammer or have someone else come and jackhammer it out. Yippie.

As for what the compost bin will be made out of, Chris sent a photo of a stacked log compost bin and we decided that we could use some of our pine trees and a combination of the magnolia’s out by the street under the powerlines. Chris cut two of the magnolias down the other day and started the process but our official compost bin construction still has a few weekends of work before it will be ready to use.

I’m also trying to think of something to try of hide the neighbor’s shed in the background. Chris removed the scraggly yaupons that were along the fence and now that area is completely viewable.

A work in progress…