Every respectable society have very select clubs. Hive is no exception. We are a very elect group called the Dirty Finger Nail Club. Meetings are strict and usually solitary. The one requirement is that you have more soil under your finger nails than remaining in the gardens. Perhaps the only thing that distinguishes one homesteader or gardener from the other is the ingenious manners of cleaning your hands .... or at least attempts to clean your hands.
When our new neighbours moved in, a year ago, and promised to build bigger compost heaps than we knew what to do with we merely smiled. We'll see ... And then they started building. And our jaws dropped ....
Each pile starts out the size of a bus and reaches temperatures that would easily fry an egg. If one were that way inclined. While I may be part of the Club I do not enjoy mixing my breakfast and my dirt.
As the debris of the drought cleanup is cleared he pushes whole trees into his heaps. Trees! Whole! And mere weeks later they're beautiful black gold! When the fields are cleared of seed the old vegetables - mostly carrot and onion or old grapevines - get composted.
The Dirty Finger Nail Club are rather an eccentric crowd. But with views like this wouldn't you spend all day piling up dead organic matter and getting grime under your nails?
It is astounding how fast he converts whole and decayed matter to wonderful compost. Piles and piles of it!
In all our years on the homestead we have never ventured composting on such large scale. Mind you all our peelings are divided (not so equally) between our chickens and goats.
Because we've loaned our tractor to him for his composting escapades he has promised us the black gold as payment. Our gardens are truly grateful! What his secret to success - at such a speed and such scale - is, is beyond me. But who wants to know when we are gifted with all this wonderful organic composting caviar!
