Up early, as had to be getting going soon after 9am for an appointment, and had an achy neck...the sign of a good gig last night!
Gathered a couple of sacks of compost, to swap for logs, and loaded up the trailer with this, the wrecking bar and fork. I headed over to the other side of town, I thought I'd memorised the route but I missed the turning and had to ask a local who had a map. I soon found Tara's house and she showed me her back garden and told me her vision for it. She trusts my knowledge when it comes to gardens (don't know why!) and I told her that in my view, her vision was do-able. We've known each other for a while but haven't seen each other socially for a couple of years.
Part of her vision is a vegetable patch, currently part of a lawn of couch grass surrounding a large block of concrete which once held a washing line. I'd offered to help break up or remove this concrete. Hence the wrecking bar. So I got busy excavating around the offending lump and dug down until I reached the base, about a foot down, and then I started to lever it up, Tara pushing down on the bar and me inserting bits of broken concrete slab which she conveniently had available. After a bit of time we had the thing out of the hole, and the hole full of bits of broken slabs and half bricks. The lump of concrete was about 2 feet by 2 feet by a foot deep, and I was unable to break it up other than to chip some bits off the edge. I gave up as my hands started to blister. We had lunch, a veg stew, baguette and nutloaf, very nice! We spent a bit of time sorting through some beech hedge offcuts, which provided me with a trailer load of fuel and a green bin of compostables for the Council compost system.
I had to get back as I had other things to do; 4 cheques to put into the building society, a York in Transition cheque to give to the Council re the Mansion House Alternative Energy event in October, and then to Alligator to pick up a lot of not very nice sacks of materials which had sat far too long, and were 'fragrant'.
Home to get them into two tumblers with lots of shredded twigs, and then a bath, as I was going out tonight and working tomorrow. Lovely to have a bath with the gas not kicking in at all, a 100% solar heated bath. Gill wasn't happy with the stuff I'm bringing home, and if I'm to do it, it needs to be regular as it gets horrible quite quickly. I guess my ankle being broken might have affected my collections a bit, but that's no excuse really.
A quick bit to eat and then cycled over to Lord Mayors Walk to St John's, where I'd booked two tickets to see Satish Kumar's lecture called 'Soil, Soul and Society'. Gill didn't feel like going, so I offered my spare ticket to Ivana.
As one would expect in a small city like York and such an inspirational speaker as Satish Kumar, I knew lots of the attendees and it was good to see some old friends, and newer ones!
Satish Kumar was born in India and in 1962 he heard about Bertrand Russel's 8 day protest walk from Aldermaston to London, his response to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the lunacy of the nuclear arms race. He decided he couldn't just let this situation happen, and thought he ought to walk to Moscow, Paris, London and then to Washington to protest about the madness which was/is the nuclear weapon situation.
On the way out of India, crossing the border to Pakistan, a friend wanted to give him money and food, but Kumar refused, as he was determined to do the whole journey without money, and just accepting whatever nourishment was offered. On the way to Moscow, he met a couple of women who worked in a tea factory, who offered him and his friend a cup of tea. Because of their support of his mission, one of them had a bright idea.... and gave him 4 boxes of tea, saying they weren't for him, but for each of the leaders who had their finger on the nuclear button. She asked him to pass on this message: 'If you are about to push the button, please just stop and have a cup of tea and think about what you are about to do.'
So, Kumar walked to Moscow, Paris and London, delivering the tea and message, and in London met Russel, who bought the travellers a ticket to New York on the Queen Mary.
Another unfinished blog post... I WILL write out my notes as this meeting was excellent, but not now.
Showing posts with label compost collections by bike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label compost collections by bike. Show all posts
A good start to the day, despite Gill waking late and rushing to get the children ready. We worked as a team... I washed up necessary bits and made a sandwich for packed lunch, and Gill got the homework ready to finish.
And it all worked like a dream... amazing. What a turn around!
The rest of the day went very well too... didn't spend too long on the computer in the morning and after lunch, cycled to school to give in a letter, then to the post office to post a book which accidentally came back with me from Sheffield, than down to town to get a cheque out for a forthcoming conference... in Sheffield... and then to Alligator to see if I could find some wheat grains so Gill can re-make a wheat sack, as her old one had virtually caught fire.... But Alligator didn't have more than a single tiny packet... but Steve took the opportunity to ask if I'd be prepared to do their composting!
Graham used to work there and at St Nicks, so he took the compostable materials to the St Nicks sawdust-heavy piles, but as he's stopped working at St Nicks, the stuff now goes in the bin. And this is completely against their values. So, sucker here, unable to turn down a sack of compostables and equally unable to say no to helping people out with working towards sustainability, said yes and picked up my first sack from them. About 20kg of mainly tomatoes and red peppers.
I called in on Country Fresh on the way back and picked up easily another 80kg of lovely stuff. And then I called in on Freshways and only had space to put their sack on my handlebars. Ridiculously overloaded... but it all would have gone to landfill if I hadn't have picked it up. I really need to get rid of a load of finished compost. Maybe I should have a compost super roadside sale? One more thing to do. Maybe.
Also today I got two really good pieces of 'John the Composter' work confirmed... One at St Nicks to do a presentation of 'Extreme Composting' to a visiting group (I am SO looking forward to this!) and one postponed talk to a group connected with Bradford University, where they have a Rocket, one of my favourite composting machines. (see the pdf here and other info about the University of Bradford 'ecoversity' here).
I also had a message from someone I met recently who I invited to see York if they were ever to visit... and they have decided that it's tomorrow! So that's tomorrow sorted then!
I did get quite a bit of time in the garden too... mainly at the front, and I had a visit from Shirley the Freecycler who offered some seeds and asked for some climbing beans... I emailed and we agreed to swap. Brilliant.. she's got pea beans and yams, and I've got squash, pattie pan Summer squash, sunflowers, kohl rabi, spinach and kinghorn yellow wax beans... wow!
Pasta and broccoli for tea, cooked on the stove once it was too dark to continue outside.
Gardener's World was good. Tried to do the washing up before bed this time.
And it all worked like a dream... amazing. What a turn around!
The rest of the day went very well too... didn't spend too long on the computer in the morning and after lunch, cycled to school to give in a letter, then to the post office to post a book which accidentally came back with me from Sheffield, than down to town to get a cheque out for a forthcoming conference... in Sheffield... and then to Alligator to see if I could find some wheat grains so Gill can re-make a wheat sack, as her old one had virtually caught fire.... But Alligator didn't have more than a single tiny packet... but Steve took the opportunity to ask if I'd be prepared to do their composting!
Graham used to work there and at St Nicks, so he took the compostable materials to the St Nicks sawdust-heavy piles, but as he's stopped working at St Nicks, the stuff now goes in the bin. And this is completely against their values. So, sucker here, unable to turn down a sack of compostables and equally unable to say no to helping people out with working towards sustainability, said yes and picked up my first sack from them. About 20kg of mainly tomatoes and red peppers.
I called in on Country Fresh on the way back and picked up easily another 80kg of lovely stuff. And then I called in on Freshways and only had space to put their sack on my handlebars. Ridiculously overloaded... but it all would have gone to landfill if I hadn't have picked it up. I really need to get rid of a load of finished compost. Maybe I should have a compost super roadside sale? One more thing to do. Maybe.
Also today I got two really good pieces of 'John the Composter' work confirmed... One at St Nicks to do a presentation of 'Extreme Composting' to a visiting group (I am SO looking forward to this!) and one postponed talk to a group connected with Bradford University, where they have a Rocket, one of my favourite composting machines. (see the pdf here and other info about the University of Bradford 'ecoversity' here).
I also had a message from someone I met recently who I invited to see York if they were ever to visit... and they have decided that it's tomorrow! So that's tomorrow sorted then!
I did get quite a bit of time in the garden too... mainly at the front, and I had a visit from Shirley the Freecycler who offered some seeds and asked for some climbing beans... I emailed and we agreed to swap. Brilliant.. she's got pea beans and yams, and I've got squash, pattie pan Summer squash, sunflowers, kohl rabi, spinach and kinghorn yellow wax beans... wow!
Pasta and broccoli for tea, cooked on the stove once it was too dark to continue outside.
Gardener's World was good. Tried to do the washing up before bed this time.
A really lovely lazy morning. Which extended into the afternoon and I didn't get out of the house until 3pm. Richard from Country Fresh rang and said that someone had just bought the last 3 bags of compost which were left over from last season, and could he have some more. So I got 4 carriers full from down the garden and cycled them down to Richard. I got eggs and butternut squash, plus several boxes and bags of compostables. Called in on Freshways on the way back for another two sacks full.
These were taken down the garden and then I built a bit of logpile outside the front door, before it got too dark to continue.
Gill had used the tomato soup as a base to cook some other vegetables in, and on top had placed a slab of scone mix to make a 'Cobbler' which was very tasty and delicious.
I had a lot to do on the computer during the evening, a campaign wanted to use a story I had about a friend, but I had to contact the friend's relatives to check if it was OK to use the story... and it wasn't. So quite a bit of email traffic to and fro.
These were taken down the garden and then I built a bit of logpile outside the front door, before it got too dark to continue.
Gill had used the tomato soup as a base to cook some other vegetables in, and on top had placed a slab of scone mix to make a 'Cobbler' which was very tasty and delicious.
I had a lot to do on the computer during the evening, a campaign wanted to use a story I had about a friend, but I had to contact the friend's relatives to check if it was OK to use the story... and it wasn't. So quite a bit of email traffic to and fro.
So, a fairly comfortable night but I have to say I'm very fond of my own bed! Very comfy mattress, and a nice cold wall to snuggle up against. I get so hot in most beds. This bed had no wall to go up against, thus I got too warm.
We got going fairly early and L took me to the bus station and I went on to the train station, where there was supposed to be a train to Scarborough at 10.44 or thereabouts, so as I had a 30+ minute wait, I sat in the waiting room and read NewScientist and who should walk in but Carolyn, from yesterday. She told me her daughter had rung up saying they'd had a difficult night and could she come back over to Leeds to help out! How lucky is her daughter to have a parent who can help with child-rearing! So we chatted and the journey went very quickly because of that, despite the train crawling along for quite a bit of the way, and arriving in York 40 minutes late.
I stopped off at Cycle Heaven as my back wheel and trailer attachment was misbehaving, and the magic touch was applied and it's back to normal again. I got in soon after 2pm.
After I had lunch I went to school to pick up our youngest... he got a lift back with a friend and I got back home well in advance of them. Bikes are faster than cars in York.
I visited Freshways and Country Fresh to stock up on recyclables (!) and got yet more bananas, and a load of garlic which I think I'll be able to pickle.
I spent a long time in the evening dealing with a large untidy pile of emails, including some interesting developments at The Earth Centre. Some developers have plans for it and are holding a couple of open days, the first on 9th Feb. I've emailed the group holding the open days, RTTG, and asked if I can attend. Their plans are to redevelop the site with 'intelligent sustainability' at it's heart, and crucially, for the locals especially, aim to have the site with open access and no entry charge.
A relaxed evening...
We got going fairly early and L took me to the bus station and I went on to the train station, where there was supposed to be a train to Scarborough at 10.44 or thereabouts, so as I had a 30+ minute wait, I sat in the waiting room and read NewScientist and who should walk in but Carolyn, from yesterday. She told me her daughter had rung up saying they'd had a difficult night and could she come back over to Leeds to help out! How lucky is her daughter to have a parent who can help with child-rearing! So we chatted and the journey went very quickly because of that, despite the train crawling along for quite a bit of the way, and arriving in York 40 minutes late.
I stopped off at Cycle Heaven as my back wheel and trailer attachment was misbehaving, and the magic touch was applied and it's back to normal again. I got in soon after 2pm.
After I had lunch I went to school to pick up our youngest... he got a lift back with a friend and I got back home well in advance of them. Bikes are faster than cars in York.
I visited Freshways and Country Fresh to stock up on recyclables (!) and got yet more bananas, and a load of garlic which I think I'll be able to pickle.
I spent a long time in the evening dealing with a large untidy pile of emails, including some interesting developments at The Earth Centre. Some developers have plans for it and are holding a couple of open days, the first on 9th Feb. I've emailed the group holding the open days, RTTG, and asked if I can attend. Their plans are to redevelop the site with 'intelligent sustainability' at it's heart, and crucially, for the locals especially, aim to have the site with open access and no entry charge.
A relaxed evening...
It is Compost Awareness Week and so I am posting this special photo-blog to show how I do my composting. Regular readers will know that I have an arrangement with a greengrocers to purchase their compostable resources for a penny per sack. This financial transaction keeps us both within the law. They have a duty to do some sorting/recycling, so putting all the biodegradables separately fulfils this, and then as I'm not a registered waste carrier, I buy the resources so they never become waste. So this is how they come home. This load is probably about 60Kg.
So, the load is taken off the bike and trailer, and this is a fairly typical selection, 6 boxes and a sack.
Another batch of finished compost in a builders bag supported by pallets.
This is a typical rubbish bag from when I turn the compost. There's assorted plastic, some 'glue-strips' which used to fix cardboard boxes together (and the cardboard has rotted away), and small bits of metal, glass and other non-compostables.
Another special edition will be uploaded sometime showing riddling and use of my compost.
So, the load is taken off the bike and trailer, and this is a fairly typical selection, 6 boxes and a sack.
Quite a bit of the stuff which I bring home is not actually mouldy or bad, just unsaleable. Like these pears, about a third of them had a brown core and the skins were a little flaccid after a long sit in a chiller, so presumably customers had either turned their noses up at them, or some might have been returned. So the whole batch was slung out... my way. These got taken in to the house, and over a couple of evenings, washed, halved, cored, peeled and each half cut into 3 slices and put on drying racks over the woodstove. An excellent penny's worth!
This box had cabbage leaves, bits of fruit, a cracked egg, corrugated paper, screwed up envelopes and nothing worth saving. All of this was composted, with the box used as a side to a pallet compost heap.
This box was more promising for a freegan soup-maker, or freegan wife pizza-maker. Delicious tiny tomatoes, some manky and horrible, but a good percentage, enough to fill the saucepan, were perfect. The shop keeper didn't have time or patience to sort them... a large percentage were unsaleable, but I always have time to sort stuff out if it's as delicious as tiny tomatoes! Some of those pears were dried, and some of the mango too.
Oh no! More pears and mango! Plenty for the compost, and plenty to dry or eat fresh. Some of these pears were gently stewed, (on the woodstove of course) and served when cold with vegan ice cream. We sometimes feel we live like royalty...
Not much in this box for re-use, so oranges and Kale leaves for the compost...
This box had cabbage leaves, bits of fruit, a cracked egg, corrugated paper, screwed up envelopes and nothing worth saving. All of this was composted, with the box used as a side to a pallet compost heap.
This box was more promising for a freegan soup-maker, or freegan wife pizza-maker. Delicious tiny tomatoes, some manky and horrible, but a good percentage, enough to fill the saucepan, were perfect. The shop keeper didn't have time or patience to sort them... a large percentage were unsaleable, but I always have time to sort stuff out if it's as delicious as tiny tomatoes! Some of those pears were dried, and some of the mango too.
Oh no! More pears and mango! Plenty for the compost, and plenty to dry or eat fresh. Some of these pears were gently stewed, (on the woodstove of course) and served when cold with vegan ice cream. We sometimes feel we live like royalty...
Not much in this box for re-use, so oranges and Kale leaves for the compost...
That avocado was slightly bruised, and was delicious in a granary sandwich with mayonnaise. The grapes were sorted and washed, blanched and dried into raisins.
Some of my loads are chopped up and put in my 600 litre 'Compostumbler'. I put in shredded hedge, wood-chips, sawdust, straw, cardboard, plus many tens of kilos of fruit and veg, also roadkill and cooked food. Temperatures in the tumbler can reach 7o Celsius, extremely hot. This is a batch composter, with perhaps 1000 litres of material being put in over a few weeks, then turned for a few weeks, and taken out with the fork and placed in a dalek or pallet bin 'sit and wait' heap, for maturing for a year or more.
This is a slightly smaller tumbler, with an ingenious system for putting the material in the top, and taking it out, composted, from a hatch in the end. Made by 'Sun Mar'.
This is a 'GreenCone', supposedly for composting cooked food waste and allegedly rat proof. It has a plastic basket buried in the ground, and double-skinned walls. It isn't rat proof, they can burrow in the soil and chew through the plastic basket. I place a rat trap inside this, and when I get one, I put the dead rat in the hot Compostumbler.
Some of my loads are chopped up and put in my 600 litre 'Compostumbler'. I put in shredded hedge, wood-chips, sawdust, straw, cardboard, plus many tens of kilos of fruit and veg, also roadkill and cooked food. Temperatures in the tumbler can reach 7o Celsius, extremely hot. This is a batch composter, with perhaps 1000 litres of material being put in over a few weeks, then turned for a few weeks, and taken out with the fork and placed in a dalek or pallet bin 'sit and wait' heap, for maturing for a year or more.
This is a slightly smaller tumbler, with an ingenious system for putting the material in the top, and taking it out, composted, from a hatch in the end. Made by 'Sun Mar'.
This is a 'GreenCone', supposedly for composting cooked food waste and allegedly rat proof. It has a plastic basket buried in the ground, and double-skinned walls. It isn't rat proof, they can burrow in the soil and chew through the plastic basket. I place a rat trap inside this, and when I get one, I put the dead rat in the hot Compostumbler.
This is a pair of bay-window radiators, being used as a 'sit and wait' compost heap.
Pallet bin. This is wired together, and when it needs turning, un-wired and dug out. Cardboard makes an excellent liner to stop stuff falling out of the slats. This one is atop several other pallets to make it less habitable for rats, which like to be able to access heaps from underground.
This is what is turned out of the pallet bin. It has sat in the cube for several months, and this is it's first turn. Again, I put it in a load of cardboard. This enclosure is lined with some plastic sheeting I found in a skip.
Emptied pallet bin. The black bin bag is there as when I tip stuff in, I take out as much plastic and non-compostable material, for landfill.
Another batch of finished compost in a builders bag supported by pallets.
This is a typical rubbish bag from when I turn the compost. There's assorted plastic, some 'glue-strips' which used to fix cardboard boxes together (and the cardboard has rotted away), and small bits of metal, glass and other non-compostables.
Another special edition will be uploaded sometime showing riddling and use of my compost.
Quite a quiet day... not much happened during the morning, but early in the afternoon I cycled into town to pay a bill and buy a copy of 'The Ecologist' which has been published and there's an article about CRAGs and a profile of me... but the bank was shut and the magazine hadn't been delivered yet, so a bit of a waste of time. So went to visit Dylan at Millers Yard and had a chat and brought back 3 sacks of compostable orange halves... so not a complete waste of time!
The boys had a visitor all day so all was peaceful and happy.
I spent some time harvesting beans which have been frosted and the pods needed picking and the beans taking out to dry. Also picked a load of nasturtium seeds and buds for washing and salting, and eventual pickling. ALSO sorted out the last load of pumpkin seeds and put them on newspaper for drying in front of the stove. So loads of produce all over the house.
The boys had a visitor all day so all was peaceful and happy.
I spent some time harvesting beans which have been frosted and the pods needed picking and the beans taking out to dry. Also picked a load of nasturtium seeds and buds for washing and salting, and eventual pickling. ALSO sorted out the last load of pumpkin seeds and put them on newspaper for drying in front of the stove. So loads of produce all over the house.
No lie-in as the boys were up early, but lovely to see them and had some cuddles. They were tired after their exciting trip away and so was I so we didn't do that much. However I had some cheques to put in from previous Fiddlesticks gigs, and I did a pick-up at Out Of This World and the Heslington Rd Greengrocers. Did some tomato plant management and lots of emails and blogging.
In the evening had a good chat with my friend in USA, but didn't tell her much about the Green Gathering, as she had lots to tell me about what she was doing and the rather stressful time she's been having. I knew she'd be able to read my blog anyway which would tell her more details.
Late to bed.
In the evening had a good chat with my friend in USA, but didn't tell her much about the Green Gathering, as she had lots to tell me about what she was doing and the rather stressful time she's been having. I knew she'd be able to read my blog anyway which would tell her more details.
Late to bed.
