Compost Season Has Begun

Notice that I didn't say gardening season. The weather is finally starting to warm up, but with a last frost date still 6 weeks away, I'm not in a hurry to plant anything in the ground. But that's okay because I got to do my next favorite thing, playing with the compost! The best thing about being the garden liaison here in our community garden is that I am in charge of the compost (the other main benefit is that we get two garden plots instead of just one). So yesterday the girls and I headed out to fill the huge compost tumbler out at the garden. We have two big black bins that families in our apartments can throw their compost in year round. When the weather is warm enough I periodically fill our compost tumbler with the raw material in the black bins, along with weeds from the garden, leaves, and other garden waste. If I do it right I can have finished compost ready to put on the garden plots every 2-3 weeks. Of course, the mice enjoy this ready food source all winter long. They've had quite an easy life in the black bins. Until I came along with my shovel and pitchfork yesterday, that is. You should have seen them, two or three mice scurrying up out of their holes with each shovelful of compost. They couldn't quite figure out what had happened to their nice homes. Anna, Josie and Ruthie loved watching them, as long as they ran away from us when I scared them up. A few of them were pretty disoriented and had to be encouraged in the right direction. Today when we went out to spin the compost tumbler there were no mice to be seen in the almost empty black bin. Until next winter, little mice! We've enjoyed watching you scurry away from us all winter long as we came out to your home to dump out our compost. I hope you find nice summer quarters.