Sunday 4th November 07

I got started fairly early this morning as I had an enormous pile of not-waste from the veg shop, I'd say at least 200kg. I finished unloading the 600 litre 'compostumbler' and immediately started refilling, with alternating layers of woodchips and shredded hedge with dead lettuces, courgettes, carrots, hundreds of apples and pears, and other veg and fruit, all chopped to help them rot quicker. I managed to completely fill the compostumbler in one go, it should go like a bomb! Well, like a hot compost heap actually...

I took a break for an hour to watch Countryfile and have an early lunch, but didn't come back in to listen to Gardeners' Question Time, I think Gill recorded it. I can always listen to it on the web, the 'listen again' service is very good.

I spent all of the afternoon in the garden, and dug out a finished sit n wait heap too, turning it into a neighbouring bay made with pallets. This first turn after a long 'sit n wait' is enough to finish the process, the next time I visit this material, it will be rotted down enough to riddle and use. I remember making this heap, it was at Easter as I recognise some of the bones, from three Xmas turkeys which had been in a shop freezer until then, and given to me for recycling as they were out of date. I've never composted turkeys before, only smaller roadkill birds like ducks, crows and songbirds. But they rotted well in the hot heap conditions, leaving only the larger bones until now, which will be mostly gone by next spring when I'll have the compost ready for use.

The boys spent quite a bit of the day in their pyjamas doing their homework... my 10 year old doing 2 A4 sheets on gases, including a piece on farts! My 8 year old had to prepare a book review so he justabout read a whole book in one day, I think it was 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes' or something like that. So because of good behaviour, I made up a 'one log bonfire' for them, on the lawn (well, in the lawn, as you cut out and remove a chunk of turf to put the split log into). We had this after 6pm, whilst neighbours were letting off their fireworks. We had 2 packets of sparklers, one log and two thin-wood fruit trays as tinder for our frugal but wonderful mini outdoor fire. Much better than a big wasteful bonfire! Less smoke too, as the shape of the split log helps it burn cleanly.

During the evening a baby hedgehog visited us and was snuffling round in the undergrowth, very cute. Didn't seem to mind the fire, it came within a couple of metres of it.

A late night doing my paid blog, a second on white poppies, as there was a comment about them from last week's offering.