The Compost Consideration

We've been trying to compost for some time now.  We have a little compost bin beside the sink and we put lots of things in it.  My daughter likes to walk down the hill in the back yard and help me dump out the contents since before she could walk well.   Our ability to compost has gotten more and more constrained as time goes on however.

We have a dog and a non-fenced in yard.   We have deer, beavers, ground hogs and some sort of coyotes that roam around in the area that's behind our house.  The problem isn't the wild animals though, it's our dog.  

From the start, we've only put things into the compost bin that wouldn't appeal to the dog.   But from time to time, something slips in when someone's visiting that the dog goes nuts over.   Sometimes it's been us, thinking that particular thing wouldn't be appealing to her, but it is.  Those mistakes, over time, have caused a lot of trouble.

Whenever we dump the compost now, the dog spends long periods of time outside, checking to see if any of it is worth eating.  Sometimes, the food has already began to mold and decay in our compost bin so having her go through it over several days, stepping in decomposing matter and eating things that are most likely not healthy for her, became a concern.   That and we're not keen on the idea of it getting brought back into the house on paws and under-fur.

Even if we put nothing but potato skins, banana peels and orange rinds in the bin, she's still all over it for days.    We don't have a location to easily put one of those big compost bins because we're on a steep hill just beyond the grassy area.    We don't have a real use for composted material either as it's rather futile to garden on a hill with wild animals that like to eat garden fare.

The last several days the dog hasn't been feeling well.   She was down at the dump site after a recent dump of decaying food matter and now isn't interested in eating much.   We'll have her checked out. but even if it's unrelated, we both agreed it's time to put the compost bin away for a while until we have another solution.

I don't like throwing food matter away, so some of it will go down the disposal, which is acceptable in our city.   I'm going to miss the compost bin for now though.

The Big Boy Update:  My son hid the iPads that they only get to use on weekends.   I thought I'd hid them in a super secret spot I'd forgotten until my husband decided to ask my son if he knew where they were.   He said, "I hid them so sneaky Reese couldn't get them."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My son upset my daughter at bedtime last night when Uncle Jonathan was watching them.   She told him, "Greyson is a bad guy, and a boodee butt, and...a sandwich."