Archive for August, 2007
Well I finally got a day to dedicate to assembling all the material we had been collecting for the compost pile. Yesterday I spent about 5 hours chipping, shredding, layering, and spraying the material into the compost pile. Thanks to my Master Composter friend Thomas, the design for the bin was created with shipping pallets and hardware cloth quite cheaply. It is about 3 feet high, 3 feet wide, and 4 feet deep. The starting temperature according to my handy composting thermometer was about 88°F.
For those of you not very familiar with composting, it is the process of producing compost through aerobic decomposition of biodegradable organic matter. It takes the right combination of Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Water to foster aerobic decomposition. Active (or hot) composting, which is what I am doing, allows the aerobic bacteria to thrive which is what causes the heat. This is where the thermometer comes in handy. The ideal temperature is between 130°F and 140°F for a few days.
Back to my pile… here’s a few of the ingredients that went into my pile:
- Shredded Oak Leaves
- Chipped Oak Branches
- Grass Clippings
- Stall Hay and Horse Manure
- Several Buckets of Kitchen Scraps (no meat or dairy)
- Dryer Lint
- Paper towels from cleaning non-chemical messes
- Water
- Shredded Bush Trimmings
So this was all yesterday. Today I went out to check the pile to see if there had any progress, and it had! At 2pm today I checked and the pile was at 122°F!!! And even better I went out 2 hours later to check it again at 4pm and it was at 128°F!!! Wahoo! We have heat!
Update: 6pm - Two hours and a short thunderstorm later… we’ve jumped another 6 degrees in the pile! Awesome! Now reading in at 134°F.
Update: 8pm - I’m starting to sense a pattern here… two more hours and another jump of 6 degrees! So now it is at 140°F. I’m beginning to wonder if it will go higher than that?!?! I’ll have to consult my local Master Composter to find out if this is a problem or a good thing.
Update: Next morning 8am - Another update for those of you out there just dying to know what today’s temp is! It looks like it has reached the highest temp, 161°F! I checked again at 11 because I am home today with Jenna because she is sick and it is still at 161°F. See picture below.
Thats probably all the updates I’ll do to this post.
August 26th, 2007
I have decided that whatever we’re looking for around the house is… in the couch cushions. Somewhere deep within my couch, there is a greedy monster that likes to play hide-and-seek with whatever it is I’m looking for.
Right after Colby was born, my parents and sisters came over to bring us dinner. (just one of the many times they would do this) A few days later, Katrina noticed her cell phone was missing. We looked and looked everywhere for this phone and just decided it had been stolen or was in a jacket pocket. That was in May. In July, when I finally got around to vacuuming out my couch, guess what I found? Katrina’s cell phone.
There have been other things we have found in the couch cushions - Colby’s matchbox cars, cracker crumbs, my hair clips, etc., etc. But I wasn’t necessarily looking for any of those items. So, time passed and I forgot about the “monster”, but the other day, I was desperately looking for Kennedy’s pacifier clip. We don’t go anywhere without “Kia-dee binky”, as Colby calls it, and she’s very good at spitting the binky out of her mouth whenever she doesn’t want it. This causes the binky to fall to the floor, and I’m tired of getting funny looks when I put the binky in my mouth and then stick it back in her mouth. Just kidding. Sort of. So anyway, I’m running through the house frantic because I can’t find the stinkin’ binky clip, so I just make sure I have 2-3 pacifiers and I vow to switch them out and remember to wash them off whenever one falls to the floor.
We spent an entire week without a binky clip. So, I finally got to Target and bought more and then all was right with the world. Right? Wrong. Guess what happened yesterday? I cleaned out the couch cushions and found -
a headband
2 matchbox cars
money !!!
annnnnnnnnd…..
1 pacifier clip
Hooray! I now have 3. I’m still looking for one. Will you please check your couch and make sure your couch monster didn’t eat Kennedy’s binky clip? :-) My mom says she has a dryer monster that eats socks. Thankfully I don’t have a dryer monster, but I do have a couch monster. I think I will name him Oscar the Couch.. Monster.
August 23rd, 2007
Thank you everyone for calling me and giving me lots of good stuff for my birthday yesterday. I also got chocolate chip cookies from Alicia and double chocolate chip cookies from Rachel. Hooray! Kevin gave me gift certificates to Sweet Eugene’s and to Academy and also a voucher for babysitting while I redeem said gift certificates. He’s so funny. I’ll have to take a picture of them and post.
My parents took my sisters and me shopping for new clothes this past weekend, which was also tax-free weekend. If you don’t live in Texas, you should at least come down here when it’s tax-free weekend, about 2 weekends before school starts in August. I know it’s only 8.25%, but hey. Stores were having 75% off sales on top of being tax-free, so we got some good deals. I got my first post-(Kennedy)pregnancy clothes that are actually the same size as I wore pre-pregnancy. Hooray again!
The surprise of the year comes from my grandparents. A few weeks ago I was flipping through a Kohl’s catalog and I said to my mom, “Man, I need a new mixer.” (I ‘inherited’ my Mom’s mixer when I got married. It was brand new when she got married… and it’s 70s green, which is back in style now! But, it has mixed quite a lot of things in its lifetime and I can hardly use it to make a decent banana bread anymore.) So, my mom took this info to my grandparents, and Toyota. I got a brand new Kitchenaid mixer. Double hooray! Time to send the old one “off to the farm”. 
August 21st, 2007
Jenna and I are celebrating our 5th Anniversary today! I know it sounds cliché, but we have had an amazing marriage. She is my best friend in the world and I would do anything for her. We’ve been together for almost 9 years (December 4th was our first date) through most of my career at A&M and all of hers. We had a lot of fun in college, experiencing the whole Texas A&M thing together… we’ve attended the same church for 8+ years… and now living together for 5.
We’ll be having a nice dinner and evening without the kids thanks to Jenna’s parents, and then in the morning we go for a couple’s massage. I have never had a massage before, so this is kind of exciting. Jenna, I love you baby. Thank you for being my wife and mother to my children. I love every day with you.
August 3rd, 2007
