This weekend, we went to the seaside for Grant’s annual family weekend get-together. I started the weekend by smashing a homemade jar of jam on the kitchen floor in my haste to get out the door; I celebrated the midpoint by dropping a mug on the tile floor of our rented cottage; but I rounded up by toting three bags of compost home on my bicycle.
Do you think the landfill waste diverted by the latter make up for the former? Continue reading
Filed under composting, no waste on the road
It’s official! Vancouver has joined the ranks of such municipalities as Seattle and Victoria and has voted to allow the keeping of backyard hens.
Now, you may think that I am just jumping on the hot new trend of urban chicken keeping, but I assure you my interest is genuine. Continue reading
Filed under Around the house, composting
As I have mentioned before, we have a compost. Just the plain, out-in-the-back- garden variety. We don’t do much to it besides throw veggies in and cover them with the occasional handful of leaves. It’s really only in the past two years that I have bothered turning it or maintaining it at all.
It’s this lackadaisical approach (and our sufficiently large back yard) that has kept my knowledge of indoor worm composting to a minimum. I’m talking about those small bins, complete with lid and drip tray that are basically the only option for apartment dwellers. I have always managed to avoid them by inhabiting homes with at least a small square of grass, and hence, a traditional outdoor compost.
Now, it’s true that my compost has worms in it, but those are wild, free-range worms. Continue reading
Filed under composting, DIY
Well, it finally happened. Our vacuum bag filled up. This doesn’t happen often because we mainly have laminate floors and prefer an old fashioned broom to the overpowering, cat-traumatizing power of our upright vacuum. But nothing beats the clean corners obtained by electrically induced suction, and now our bag is full.
In a perfect world, we would have a bagless version, but in reality we bought it years ago when we were on a pretty thin budget. I specifically remember that we went for the second from the cheapest model, congratulating ourselves on not being the complete lowest of the low. (This was long before the concept of craigslist or freecycle had drifted into my life.)
So the question is, what to do with the dust bag? Continue reading
Filed under composting
I’ve been receiving some composting questions as of late, and, not being a compost expert myself, I did a little online research and eventually decided to go to the source of all things compostable: the compost hot line.
Yes, here in Vancouver, we have a compost hot line where you can ask your burning compost questions and gardening experts will give you the dirt on how to turn your fruit and vegetable kitchen scraps into black gold.
Filed under composting
The one time we forget our reusable mugs, and it’s open bar.
Last night, Grant and I went to the International Vancouver Film Festival Gala. Our first gala. Ever. We knew there would be food;we knew there would be drink; we naively thought that they would serve thousands of people with real wine glasses.
I managed to snag one of the few ceramic side plates floating around, but the only beverage option was plastic. Or was it? Continue reading
Filed under composting
The Clean Bin Project Blog 