RoxburyPuddingHouse

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Making our own compost

Since before we even owned the Puddinghouse, we've been composting here. While we were waiting for the closing, we set up this composter (which we bought at the BBMC) and did a bit of yard work. It was mostly just leaves and weeds we'd pulled. Then for almost a year we stuffed everything we could in there: yard waste, kitchen scraps, old potting soil, and every worm that I found while digging my drainage trenches back in June. We turned it every week or two, and bided our time.

Finally, in November, we decided it was time to see what we had created. There's a sliding door down at the bottom of this composter model that opens to allow access to sweet sweet soil. And it did!

I put some half-inch hardware mesh over a bin and set about screening the finished compost. All the twiggy bits and leaf clumps and etc. went back into the bin to have another go-around, and any worms we saw too. Take a look at that screened soil! We ended up with 2 bins full.

The bigger stuff goes back in the bin, soon to be followed by a new batch of fall leaves.

Now, most sane people would save this precious screened compost for their veggie gardens, but we'll be gardening next spring at a local community garden up the street, and get city-provided compost. And our little lawn is still pretty patchy, with plenty of gravel and stones still popping through the grass. Mike had a great suggestion way back over the summer: spread the compost over the lawn in the fall, build up the soil level on top of that gravel we'd inherited, and get some happy grass nutrients down before the snow falls. So yeah, we spread it all over the lawn.

Raking leaves in the city

Time to do something about the thick carpet of leaves, pine needles, and pine cones in our yard.

Raking into piles...

Attacking the biggest pile of leaves...

Attack!

Beating the leaves into submission and into bags...

Ah, there's the lawn again.

And 20 bags of leaves for the city compost.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

The inmates were running the asylum . . .

. . . and when they grew tired of covering every surface with carpet, they removed and replaced every decent doorknob. And left us something worse than no doorknobs. Look at this:

Liz affirms my frustration that these photos make the knobs that blemish our doors look acceptable. We fear the eyes will begin to roll at my exaggerations. Suspicion will grow that we are effete doorknob-snob elitists, and there's nothing a real American would find objectionable about these ordinary late 20th century doorknobs.

Au contraire.

They're made of stiff polished tinfoil in Malaysian sweatshops by malnourished tweens harboring a caustic loathing for Americans that they satiate by creating the most painful, nonfunctioning, awkward doorknobs known to science.

e.g.: parts of them move independently when you turn them! This violates a basic, fundamental principle of doorknob design. Turning the knobs must always result in releasing the latch mechanism. Isn't that the point of a doorknob? Not for these ones. Go ahead, they encourage, keep turning the knob. We can do this all day if you like.

or: the one in the bathroom. Slippery and small to begin with, before the steam. But not content with mere frustration, this knob aims higher: human blood must be shed! Sharp scalloped edges! Unexpected spring action!

Enough!

So we've been hunting for knobs.

We had to guess what sort this house was originally graced with. I grew up in an old farmhouse from the same period, and there we opened doors with an eclectic mix of white, black, or solid brown ceramic, Benningtons, and ornate cast bronze beauties. Our catch for the Puddinghouse has been just as eclectic, but included quite a few faceted glass knobs, and no nice bronzes.