Kitchen Scraps Compost Bin

Our local city council has sent out a gorgeous wee brown bin to us, (they call it a caddy) so we can compost kitchen scraps. It came a couple of weeks ago, along with special bags, a list of what can go in it, and special tags to put on the main bin handle to ask for new bags when you need more.

The only thing is, between one dog, three cats, and 523 chickens - what on earth are we supposed to put in it? Don't the council KNOW we are already doing our bit???

It IS a lovely bin though. Just not too sure what to do with it!

Third Compost Bin . . .

I managed to get the third compost bin put into place today.

Having experienced the unpleasantness of rats moving in to the first one, I now make sure there is wire mesh underneath them right from the word go. This was almost the last of the mesh we got for the chicken run - there is only a little bit left now, after us thinking we had bought far too much. Nice to know we didn't waste our money.

The first bin I got (extreme left one) was from somewhere like B&Q and cost me over £20. You will be very happy to hear that our local council started "selling" bins last year for a fiver each - with a cap on two-per-household. I am not sure why they cap it - there have to be more people NOT wanting them than there are people wanting more than two. .  you know? Seems to me they could be a little relaxed for us interested lot. I was totally wrong in my anticipation that the bins would be "spit-through-and-tiny" - they are actually really quite good - and as you can see they are bigger than the one I bought.

YAY!

It wont be long before this one fills up a little and beds down into the mesh, making it too difficult for the rats to move in to their des-res.

The first bin isn't quite ready for emptying though. Am not too sure what I'll do when the third one is full. There is something very wrong about the idea of putting the valuable chicken poo in the green collected bin and "giving it away"! I may have to acquire two more bins. . . I'll show you a photograph of Iain's face when I announce that to him!

Here is a lovely shot of one of the apple trees this evening:

If you believe the amount of buds on the trees, this is going to be a bumper crop. Fingers crossed for that - we really enjoyed the apples last year.

Wants Wattson

I have decided that I want a Wattson after reading about it on the Omlet forum.

In theory I am quite conscious of the electricity I use in the house but our bills continue to be fairly high. It isn't ME who sticks the tumble drier on in the summer and and *I* only have one television on at t a time etc etc but it would be good to have something I could point at to explain the way we let electricity *trickle through our fingers* to the children who have no concept of having to pay for the tv they leave switched on when they are out playing in the garden.

The other night I told David we would have to take his jeans out of the washing machine in order to have them dry for the next morning. His reply was not to bother - and to just put them in the drier for an hour before he went out. Nuhuhh - that isn't the way *I* think so why do my children think this way?

The Wattson is fairly pricey and at first it is hard to justify spending all that money in order to save a few per-cent every quarter but I think it should be more of an educational tool for the children rather than anything else.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has one installed.