Cooking

It occurred to me that I do a lot of cooking and cleaning.  I'm not barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.  I'm in the barn cleaning stalls, and cooking compost at the cabana, every day cooking and cleaning.  The pregnant part is done and Mini Manure Connoisseur is with me supervising along the way.  By the way, he is a little less mini now, he just turned one!

The turning bin (see last post if confused) maintained it's temp close to 150, this is good.  We moved it to a cabana spot.  Photos are below.  I took the temp this morning and it's 142*, which I'm happy with since it's cooked long enough to be clean but is still doing it's stuff and decomposing more, this is also good.

This is the first Spring Java Gold Compost  has been available in bags.  It has been an awesome spring.  I have met wonderful gardeners who care that I CARE about the stuff they are putting in their garden.  Of course, I'm looking forward to meeting many more happy and conscientious gardeners.  Production is keeping up well, and with every pile I pick, I enjoy the "harvest" of manure more as we make excellent compost with it.  I really like our latest batch, the consistency is appealing, it might just be our best looking batch yet, we'll see.  I'm breaking into it this week for a new customer.

Mini napping nearby (in the red stroller) while we get ready to empty out the turning bin and put the compost into the manure cabana:

Getting a steaming scoop out:

Settling it into the cabana bin:

Steamy...

Dumping another scoop from the turning bin into the cabana:

I check on Mini, he's snoozing away.

We placed the aeration tubes in, fill it more, etc.

top it off, even it out, and put this batch to bed. 

 The turning bin, empty:

Working it

I don't mess with our stuff too much.  Muck the stalls, pick the paddocks, put it in a bin and make sure it has what it needs to cook.

I was tending to my latest heap and wanted to work it and give it a little help.

Here is the turning bin.  This is a bin attached to the manure cabana where the fresh manure goes and is covered, turned, etc until ready to go into the cabana where it finishes.

I pulled back the cover and took the temperature.  Yes, that's a fancy compost thermometer.  The only thing fancy about it is the price.  Ouch.  I like FarmTek, but sometimes their prices hurt a little, this thermometer is one example.

Not too great on the temp.  I did a little poking around... too dry. 140*
It has been turned plenty, and I just added a new layer on top that had yet to get cooking, but it was not as fabulous as usual.  This is unacceptable.

I got the watering can and gave it a nice sprinkling on top.

The next day, we get this.

wait a minute, mini connoisseur is trying to grab the thermometer while I'm holding him and trying to take a photo.

 curious little bugger.

now he looks like he's modeling it. 

this one is good of the compost, but not of the thermometer

at last, the money shot.

I'm happy with that temp, 152*.  It will get hotter, hopefully I'll take another shot a photographing the temp as it progresses.


by the way, here is the turning bin and cabana again, but with many less tress behind it than the top photo shows.  We had 15 trees removed behind the cabana for the new paddock this weekend.

Hoarder

You might think we have more compost than we want... but my husband would beg to differ.  That guy is a compost hoarder.  It's like he sheds a tear with each bag I "rehome" (sell) and at least once a week reminds me that we need some for ourselves too.

Of course, I make sure we have enough for our purposes. I'm in charge of grocery shopping, stocking the fridge and freezer, the grain and hay in the barn, and... compost inventory.  It's a natural add on.

And, Mr. Manure Connoisseur got to spend a little quality time with his portion of compost yesterday.  We had a couple of covered windrows that needed to be moved a little.  So Mini Manure Connoisseur (my adorable son) and Mr. Manure Connoisseur got some seat time in on the tractor and moved a couple of precious windrows. 

By the way, the piles were moved because we are removing all the trees in that area to make another grass paddock.  Tree work starts this week.  Less trees, more sun, that's good for grass, for the horses, for the compost.  This all makes me happy.

Ohhhh, compost.  It looks all pretty and molded because we just took the cover off:

Messing up that windrow.

Compost

We make it and sell a little bit of it.
We only have 3 horses living here at a time, so it's not a tremndous amount of compost. 
Just enough to use for our fields and to bag and sell to some appreciative customers.

The main reason we compost is because something has to be done with it, and I certainly am not going to pay someone to pick it up for me in a dumpster.  And, I definetly don't want to ever have to pay for compost for my garden, plants, trees and fields.  Bottom line, compost is extremely useful... and I'm frugal.

We have a bin system for our composting.  Called... the Manure Cabana.

Photos:


Le bins:

Turning compost with the tractor bucket:

That's about all you can probably stand in one post about compost.  I don't want to bore you on my first post!