On Composting and Feeling Absurdly Virtuous

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We are admittedly a bit late to the game, but we have started composting here at Three Geese Farm. With four hens laying eggs daily, and us frantically trying to devour as many of these delicious miracles of nature as possible, there is plenty to compost, coming out of the coop and the kitchen. I bought a compost bin with ventilated sides that sits outside behind the coop. I also purchased a kitchen countertop compost container that is airtight. That is for coffee grounds, eggshells, banana peels — every perishable form of food waste except meat products.

I feel absurdly virtuous now that we are composting.  As with most anything to do with this hobby farm adventure, I have no idea how to compost. Luckily, my Beautiful Mystery Companion once composted faithfully. My primary duties, besides buying the outdoor and indoor containers, are to remember to put the food waste in the countertop container. When it is full, I empty it into the outside container, rinse it out, and we start over.

Eventually, I will have to clean out the coop. Chicken manure will join the mix. We use the deep litter method, meaning I add a bag of pine shavings on top of the existing layer weekly. After six months, I will clean it down to the ground and start over with a fresh, thick layer of shavings. Shoveling chicken manure is right up my alley.

There is no dispute that composting is a worthy endeavor. It reduces landfill waste. Eventually, we will have access to nutrient-rich materials to keep our plants healthy and thriving, without relying on chemical fertilizers. (We never did that anyway, except on the pasture.)

Did I mention the part about feeling virtuous?

One of the few downsides of moving to the country four years ago is not having curbside recycling. (Longview just restarted its recycling program. It was out of commission for several months after the recycling plant burned to the ground. I called it the largest burn pile in East Texas.)

At Three Geese Farm, we had to either throw away everything or haul the kajillion cardboard boxes from Amazon, Sam’s Club, and wherever else we bought stuff online, to the burn pile. Luckily, there is reliable garbage pickup here. One of my weekly duties is hauling the giant container 100 yards down the driveway to the road. It is good exercise.

Then, last year, Sam’s Club plopped a large shipping container in its parking lot, where folks like us living in the country can recycle plastic bottles and food containers, as well as aluminum cans. I bought two small blue recycling bins that sit by the door into the garage, so we can simply open the door and toss our sparkling water cans, etc., into them. Unfortunately, Sam’s doesn’t take cardboard or paper, and hardly anyone recycles glass bottles now. Most boxes go to the burn pile, leaving newspapers and magazines to be chucked in the trash. (Yes, I still read print products.)

I try to be smart about this recycling thing. Making an extra trip to Sam’s just to dispose of the recyclables burns gasoline and sends carbon dioxide into the air — admittedly not much. I combine it with coming to town for other reasons, usually a visit to the Orange Big Box Store. We don’t use enough glass to make it worth saving and spending gas to deposit at the few places in Longview that still accept it for recycling.

As my friend and former colleague Jo Lee Ferguson pointed out in a recent Answer Line in the local paper about recycling options, we would have to drive 30 minutes to recycle cardboard and paper, a penny-wise, pound-foolish use of gasoline. It’s the burn pile or the trash container for those items at Three Geese Farm. My goal is not to set our forest on fire, which would add to carbon emissions even more than the incinerated cardboard does.

At least we are now doing what we can to reduce what we send to the landfill, even if it’s not a significant amount. It is enough to make me feel a bit more virtuous. I guess that’s something.

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