Gross things escaping

When my son's girlfriend Jackie is not studying for her PH.D in physics, she worries about composting.

She wrote. "Do you have any suggestions for a compost bin? I think I have to use worms since I do not have a yard and no grass clippings and I do not want those gross things to escape."

"Gross worms" are near the top of the "essential to gardening" list, just below bees. Worms eat their body weight daily in compost and dirt.

Casey, also 20-something, is interested in composting in her city apartment. Santa delivered her a composting machine -- about the size of a hard drive. She blogged about it.

"Mom, it wakes me up in the middle of the night," Casey said. "It goes off about every four hours."

Casey and Jackie touch on a bigger topic: how do we create a system for composting?

In the back of Casey's 1925-era apartment building is a round 3-gallon bin, buried so only the metal flip-top lid shows, intended for city dwellers to deposit their kitchen scraps. Once upon a time, a pig farmer would collect the food waste and recycle them to pigs. It's a way of life that might be sprouting out of the compost pile with peak oil hovering.

Both women live alone in a bigger community and don't generate a huge amount of compost.
How about thinking bigger -- and connecting to the community?

What if Jackie asked her condo association in Ann Arbor, Michigan to consider creating a compost pile -- that can be as simple as a hole in the ground on the edge of the property. Grass clippings treated with traditional lawn fertilizer is not welcome if the compost is intended for a garden. The condo association could buy and take care of a worm composter.

What if we all had a system to recycle fruit and vegetable waste [NO ANIMAL PRODUCTS ] back into the soil without much help from us or the worms. The photo above is my very low maintenance compost pile. Collect it in the kitchen, carry it 50 steps to the yard, throw it on and forget it. We barely stir it and the worms arrive naturally.

What if Casey inquired about neighborhood community gardens to donate her compost?

Both initiatives require connecting to community, an essential ingredient to survival in the new millennium. Reading about predictions about Peak Oil and the demise of society is enough to scare me into meeting my neighbors and becoming a chicken keeper.

I like that both Jackie and Casey CARE about composting, have changed their thinking about waste, and are taking action. That's progress.

The new thinking and action must become contagious and communal. Buy a worm composter for the condo complex and connect to a community garden, which connects us to the earth and each other. That's a concept worth recycling.

One small step to dry my undies, one giant leap for the planet

The drying rack is in. At right, I'm tightening the clamps at the end of the super-strong stainless steel cable -- which is about 10 times stronger than necessary, but it was on hand and using it kept it out of the solid waste stream. There is no away in thrown away.

I used it to dry some towels from washing the dog. FANTASTIC! It's silly to be excited about something so simple, however, it will make the mundane task of drying laundry more convenient. It's not a huge energy saver, but it's the point that I'm setting up a system to use less energy.

I read more about chickens and their social instincts. Chickens invented "pecking order" and they implement it. I must have more than three chickens, otherwise they are like humans and gang up -- two-on-one.

According to Jeremy Hobson, "The pecking order starts with the 'top bird' and extends down to the youngest and weakest, which survive as best they can. The top bird is usually an old hen, although sometimes it is the most aggressive bird."

The chickens will provide a source of food, work AND amusement. Laughter contributes to a long life, so that will be a bonus.

It's nesting time! These birds must have a place to live. My brother Stephen, an inveterate cheapskate and fan of Craig's List, suggested I start looking there for a free or reduced price coop. If we can't find the right hen house or one to modify, we'll have to build our own.

In addition to the chicken books, I'm reading "Peak Everything" by Richard Heinberg. He starts off with the obligatory graphs showing rise of population and global temperature, and the fall of oil production and civilization. It's tough going.

The Boston Globe published a story Feb. 9 -- "Climate Change Takes a Mental Toll."

"Last year, an anxious, depressed 17-year-old boy was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne [Australia]. He was refusing to drink water. Worried about drought related to climate change, the young man was convinced that if he drank, millions of people would die. The Australian doctors wrote the case up as the first known instance of "climate change delusion."

"Robert Salo, the psychiatrist who runs the inpatient unit where the boy was treated, has now seen several more patients with psychosis or anxiety disorders focused on climate change, as well as children who are having nightmares about global-warming-related natural disasters."

I can relate. My defense against depression and hopelessness is to:

• Build a drying rack
• Prepare to adopt chickens
• Bike/walk/carpool/take public transit
• Eat less meat
• THINK differently about how I use energy
• Take action with others to change thinking to change behavior on energy consumption

Which is why I like The "Transitional Town Handbook" by Rob Hopkins. He optimistically lays the case [with required catastrophic graphs] AND provides a road map for how to transition from a culture dependent on cheap oil, to a post-peak society.

We have to start NOW to smoothly transition to a local economy, sustainable energy sources and a following a new [old] way of life in villages.