Two things. (1)

Boy 3 never has just one topic of discussion. Anytime he wants to talk to his dad or I, he always has two things. Always. "Mom? Two things...First, can I have a granola bar? and....Can I watch Avatar shows?"  "Mom? Two things. First, my throat hurts. and....Whatcha doin?"

Maybe it's a middle child thing. Maybe he needs to add weight to his conversations. Whatever it is, it's become a family joke to start all conversations with the phrase, "Two things..."

So.

Dear Readers, two things...

First, I found some free pallets on craigslist to build into a compost box, but then realized I don't really have a vehicle to haul them. We do own an ancient uglytruck for macho-type activities, but I have never attempted to drive the monstrosity, and tooling around in a jittery old pickup truck doesn't seem safe for the ever-present Girl 1 and Girl 2 (they will not bite you, they want to have fun! And out of the box came Girl 2 and Girl 1.). The organic garden store (!) that had them isn't open when the man is home from work, so I was stymied as to how to get the pallets from across town to mi casa.

The day after Labor Day, the man had the day off, so I thought I'd ask him to go pick up the pallets. Turns out, he had plans of his own, and that turned out to be organizing our wood pile. We have two fireplaces in this house and the previous owners left logs & branches strewn all over. So no pallets for me. BUT, as he was hauling and moving branches, he found this:

w.0.0.t.! 

It was hidden along the side of the house and covered in brush. We moved it into the backyard, and voila! (I actually saw online someone type "whala!"... I wanted to break stuff.) We are composting!

Problem: we need some chicken wire or something, because the dog is runty and can pull scraps out of the box. She's in heaven. Us, not so much. 

Older pic of Dumpster Diving Dawg.
She wouldn't hold still for me to get a picture of her today. 

So that's thing one. We have achieved a compost beginning, and we didn't have to drive anywhere or buy a thing. I'm hoping to find some cheap or free wire to enclose it, but we are moving right along.

Stay tuned for thing two...