Com-posting

Hello, It's me again.  I don't know what's so hard about jotting a few lines about what's going on in your life, but I'm sure it has something to do with inhibitions and thinking that everything has to be perfect.  We had a bountiful grape harvest.  We got five buckets off our grapes and five more from Denise and Ken's.  We got about a hundred quarts.  With a new steamer, bottles, lids, propane and two days labor, I figure that each bottle cost around $5.00.   We'll treat it like fine wine and save it for special occasions - like dinner.  Misty came up and we enjoyed the boys and basked in the spirit of being self-sufficient.  

Saturday morning Nate helped me dig the newest addition to the Porter Family Plantation; "The Porter Memorial Compost Pile - Where New Life Comes From Death."  It's quickly filling up with all the yard clippings, leaves and table scraps.  I've been studying up on the finer points of composting and after several weeks of thought, investigation shopping and anguish, I broke down and bought a chipper / shredder.  My small plot of ground has been such a source of inspiration and growth and I need to give back.  Which brings to mind one of my favorite Emerson Quotes: "There comes a time in every man's education, when he arrives at the conviction, that envy is ignorance, that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse - as his lot.  That though the whole world is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him, but by his toil bestowed upon that plot of ground which is given him to till."

I am a happy tiller!  Hey, check out my very first pitch fork.

 

I've been reading "Lives So Full - The Life Story of George Harding Mortimer  and Veda Jane Porter.  I won't bore you with all the details that brought this delightful biography into my possession, but I am thoroughly enjoying it.  I come home each afternoon eagerly anticipating the next installment.  I use to think that when this life was over I would like to go off into some insignificant corner of the universe and learn to play the guitar - really well.  I still would like to do that, but before I do I would like to read through the many billions of biographies written about and in behalf of earth's inhabitants. 

Happy Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and if a dream or two may chance to come your way, hold on tight and let it grow - some day you'll be composting it.