Ninja Raccoon Night Attacks

My neighborhood has raccoons. Not just little cutesy ones either. Big, growly, mean ones. I know because I came face to face with one not long ago, and not only did it chase me in the house but it growled and hissed at me through the back door. I'm actually glad it didn't whip out a switch blade and slice my tires, take out a patrol car or hold a poor kitten hostage.


Apparently my brand spankin' new handy-dandy Compost Bin is a buffet of happy raccoon goodness. The other morning when I left the house to go to work, I realized that the front door of the bin had been torn off AGAIN. The raccoons had made off with everything edible. They even sifted through it to get the rotting onions off the bottom. And I know raccoons it was because they left their grubby paw prints all over my container. I guess I should consider myself lucky they didn't take off with the whole thing for use in their crazy psychotic raccoon fortress.

I'm thinking this weekend might be a good one to spend the stinking $20 and invest in a pellet gun. Lila's husband suggested baiting them, but mentioned it might kill some neighborhood cats. I don't have cats, so I don't see this as an issue, but I can see it possibly kicking up a fuss. I can't effectively lock the thing (I looked) and it's plastic so they'd probably just tear out the lock anyway.

Damn you raccoons! Damn you!

Holy Home Compost, Batman!

My sister sent me an email last night with the subject "I think you need this". This could have included many things at this point; some sort of kitchen device, a baby chick, maybe anti-psychotics? Instead I was delight to see a picture of a home compost bin and the words"You can make your own dirt!".

The really sad part is, I honestly got really excited. I've been looking into home composting for awhile, and just hadn't found anything practical yet. Like I've said many times before, I'm on a limited budget, so spending $300 on a home version just isn't in the cards (regardless of it being $50 off).

The version my sister sent me appears to be a Keter 120 Gallon Composter. That is an optimum size for me, and a great price (about $60-70). I really didn't have a ton of organic scraps when I started this adventure. But now that I'm canning and cooking almost exclusively at home, I'm starting to get a good size pile (and right now that's what it is, discreetly hidden under a tree in my side yard). I'm going to head to the local big box store where she saw it this weekend, and depending on my paycheck this week, I might make the investment. I was also thinking about getting a kitchen bucket because well, I'm lazy. I don't want to have to run out to the big bin every time I have a handful of scraps.

Hopefully this works and doesn't just turn into a pile of rotting gross.

Composting on the Small Scale

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not looking for some sort of rotting trash pile hanging around my house. Especially because I rent, and I can see my landlord having an issue with it. I found an interesting blog on Little House in the Suburbs, but it seems a bit more of a large scale operation that what I'm looking for.

My dad has a 'compost pile' (and I'm using that in the loosest terms, because I'm not sure what he thinks that actually entails.) but what he adds to it seems to me to be pretty haphazard.To me, it just looks like a giant mound of mole-hole dirt, dead Christmas trees and random rotting food.

I'm looking to do something very small, I'm just sick of throwing away egg shells and everything else because my place doesn't have a garbage disposal. From my research, it seems everyone suggests having a compost be at least 3x3x3, which really seems a bit ridiculous for me. Our family is 1.5 (The Boy only counts as half) and since I generally cook from scratch, most our food doesn't go to waste. I don't really drink coffee anymore, and tea bags seem fairly innocuous.

However, I am planning on doing some gardening this year, and having some nearby insta-plant food cannot be a bad idea. Another friend of mine is very nicely offering to donate a chuck of his land to me for use as my own personal garden as long as he gets a portion of the spoils (I'll detail this out in another blog). So it might be nice to be able to throw some compost at that endeavor as well. I even have a friend who owns a coffee stand (this is the Pacific NW) so I'm sure I could ask from some of their grounds.

I'm going to roll this idea around a bit more, I'll be sure to keep you updated.