I enjoyed the morning and delivered a trailer load of compost in four sacks to Jenny in Clifton, and came back via Sainsbury's, Country Fresh and Freshways.
When I got back, I had a letter from the Royal Society of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce welcoming me to the Fellowship. I am officially 'John Cossham FRSA' now. Wow!
After lunch I went and picked up three pallets from around the corner and then mended the hammer so I could break them up before sawing them up.
As I was doing this, James (Jo's son) and his friend Mary came round to return the rotaseives which I lent to him and his Scouts for their compost riddling. We had a wander down the garden and they were interested in what I'm doing, but then we chatted about Professor Fiddlesticks and Circus Skills Badges, and I think he'll get back to me with a couple of dates for me to go and do my show and workshop.
At about half past 4 I cycled down to Country Fresh again as Rich had something special for me... a huge job lot of oranges and satsumas. They are pre-packed and each pack has a couple of mouldy ones, the others are fine, but it is too much hassle for them to go through the packs and separate the good from the bad, so they are giving me the lot (ahem, selling for a penny!) and I'll compost the yukky ones and hopefully find a use for the good ones!
I had a Sainsbury's pastie and some Country Fresh broccoli for tea, and then I cycled off down to Priory St for York Green Party's showing of Crude, which I've helped Owen organise.
This film documents the legal case between the Secoya and Cofan people of Ecuador, 30,000 of them, and Texaco/Chevron the oil multinational who extracted oil for 26 years before leaving the country in 1992, handing the oilfields over to PetroEcuador. Texaco stands accused of leaving about 1000 pits of oily waste in the rainforest, which drain into the rivers that the indigenous people drink from and wash in. 15 out of every 20 babies have unpleasant skin conditions and lots of children and teenagers have cancer. Texaco says it cleaned up the pits, but some were just filled in with soil, and cores taken show the oil still under the ground, and some are still open ponds of black sticky sludge.
The cast includes Pablo Fajardo, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, Sting (from the band 'The Police') and his wife Trudie Styler, who together founded the Rainforest Foundation. It's a fascinating story, with Texaco not wanting to admit any wrongdoing but being judged by one investigator to owe $27 billion in damages.
The story is not yet finished, and may not be for some time. For news of the various problems in the Amazon region, go to Amazon Watch, and if you want to show the film to a small group, go to Chevron Toxico, who have all the resources for you to put on an event just like the one I went to tonight. I do recommend it, it's a gripping film, I learned a lot, and the money raised (£62 at our event, with room hire paid for by York Green Party, and CVS giving us discount room hire rates) goes to helping the campaign.
I decided not to socialise at the pub, but to get home to Gill and the boys, and came home via a pile of waste pallets, and picked up another two for processing into stove fodder.
Did the washing up when I got home, and settled down with the laptop and Joolz Holland on the TV.
Showing posts with label Rotaseive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rotaseive. Show all posts
Friday, 23 April 2010
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Thursday 15th April 10
A good day. Up not too early and got some paperwork done, cheques into envelopes and into the post box.
And then had a busy day in the garden, getting lots done, a bit more shredding and lots of tidying, riddled the last of a builder's bag of very mature compost, bagged it up into about 20 bread bags and 14 carrier bags. All the big bits... sticks, chunks of bark, etc, went back on the new heap. I did a bit of stacking, very green alder logs which I've split to get them dry quickly.
At 3pm, my composting friend Jo came round to borrow both my Rotasieves, as her son is doing a thing with Scouts and they need to riddle lots of compost, in preparation for planting seeds.
I worked in the garden til 6pm and came in for pasta with broccoli and carrot, with home-made tomato soup as a sauce on top. Very welcome and filling.
Then later, something I've been looking forward to doing for ages... I planted the first seeds of the year. I filled about 50 toilet roll inners with home-made seed compost with a spoon... it took quite a long time, but I did then 'in situ' in a stainless steel catering dish, the sort used in ban maries to serve hot food from,which I rescued from a skip years ago. The bog-rolls were put into it, all up against each other, and the growing medium carefully spooned in. Then I put a pea-bean in each one, and a bit of seed-compost on top. Then I got water from the water butt and gave them a good dowsing from the base, so the water soaks up to the beans. I love planting seeds. And especially these climbing beans as they are just about my favourite crop. The toilet rolls will be planted in 4 to 6 weeks without disturbing the roots.
I'll do the pumpkins and squash over the weekend, and sweetcorn, brassicas, and I don't know what else. A lovely time of year. Let's hope the Icelandic volcano doesn't affect the summer temperatures too much... it could make a cool summer. I've enjoyed today partly as I was pleased the volcanic ash has closed all the airports today. One comment on facebook was that Gaia is getting her revenge....
And then had a busy day in the garden, getting lots done, a bit more shredding and lots of tidying, riddled the last of a builder's bag of very mature compost, bagged it up into about 20 bread bags and 14 carrier bags. All the big bits... sticks, chunks of bark, etc, went back on the new heap. I did a bit of stacking, very green alder logs which I've split to get them dry quickly.
At 3pm, my composting friend Jo came round to borrow both my Rotasieves, as her son is doing a thing with Scouts and they need to riddle lots of compost, in preparation for planting seeds.
I worked in the garden til 6pm and came in for pasta with broccoli and carrot, with home-made tomato soup as a sauce on top. Very welcome and filling.
Then later, something I've been looking forward to doing for ages... I planted the first seeds of the year. I filled about 50 toilet roll inners with home-made seed compost with a spoon... it took quite a long time, but I did then 'in situ' in a stainless steel catering dish, the sort used in ban maries to serve hot food from,which I rescued from a skip years ago. The bog-rolls were put into it, all up against each other, and the growing medium carefully spooned in. Then I put a pea-bean in each one, and a bit of seed-compost on top. Then I got water from the water butt and gave them a good dowsing from the base, so the water soaks up to the beans. I love planting seeds. And especially these climbing beans as they are just about my favourite crop. The toilet rolls will be planted in 4 to 6 weeks without disturbing the roots.
I'll do the pumpkins and squash over the weekend, and sweetcorn, brassicas, and I don't know what else. A lovely time of year. Let's hope the Icelandic volcano doesn't affect the summer temperatures too much... it could make a cool summer. I've enjoyed today partly as I was pleased the volcanic ash has closed all the airports today. One comment on facebook was that Gaia is getting her revenge....
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Saturday 4th April 09
Excellent day... spent lots of it outside working. Kids played, all was happy.
Our youngest went to the Yorkshire Museum quite early, with Ros and her son, to wave the 'Roman Coin' at the Portable Antiquities people. The consensus was that it was a reproduction... what a pity!
Simon came round with his son, and our eldest played with him whilst Gill and I chatted with Simon over a cuppa. I then cycled over to Goodramgate to visit Oxfam which sells big tubs of Cafedirect instant FairTrade coffee, 500g for £14.99, a somewhat better price than the Scummerfield 100g jar I got yesterday (as we'd run out!) for something like £3.40 I think. Anyway, I like to buy stuff from Oxfam. I then went on to Sainsburys and spent the same again on assorted things and came back along the cycle path and brought back sticks.
Then did a load of composting jobs... dug out a static tumbler (one which has ceased to rotate as the frame broke but I still use the drum for putting tumbled compost in, to mature) and then emptied the Compostumbler 600l machine, forking the stuff into a dalek. The children helped me with some riddling, using the Rotaseive. Did loads of this, after they'd done a couple of loads. They played on the trampoline and made mud bricks and built a wall.
A lovely but hard working day.
Our youngest went to the Yorkshire Museum quite early, with Ros and her son, to wave the 'Roman Coin' at the Portable Antiquities people. The consensus was that it was a reproduction... what a pity!
Simon came round with his son, and our eldest played with him whilst Gill and I chatted with Simon over a cuppa. I then cycled over to Goodramgate to visit Oxfam which sells big tubs of Cafedirect instant FairTrade coffee, 500g for £14.99, a somewhat better price than the Scummerfield 100g jar I got yesterday (as we'd run out!) for something like £3.40 I think. Anyway, I like to buy stuff from Oxfam. I then went on to Sainsburys and spent the same again on assorted things and came back along the cycle path and brought back sticks.
Then did a load of composting jobs... dug out a static tumbler (one which has ceased to rotate as the frame broke but I still use the drum for putting tumbled compost in, to mature) and then emptied the Compostumbler 600l machine, forking the stuff into a dalek. The children helped me with some riddling, using the Rotaseive. Did loads of this, after they'd done a couple of loads. They played on the trampoline and made mud bricks and built a wall.
A lovely but hard working day.
Monday, 26 February 2007
26th Feb 07
A day with not much on, so a late start and then my usual monday cycle into York to collect compostables from Out Of This World ethical supermarket, via Richard the greengrocer, who was a happy recipient of a super selection of home-made dried fruit, as a thank you for his sorting out materials for me... and keeping them out of landfill. So OOTW had about 40kg for me and on the way back, Richard gave me another 15 or 20 kg. I know the approx weights as when York Rotters got its first funding, DEFRA requested information about weights of materials being diverted away from landfill. I bought a pocket-sized spring-balance from Barnitts and weighed my compostables for months and months, and recorded the weights and types of material (ie from our kitchen; commercial fruit/veg; cardboard; neighbours garden materials; my compost toilet materials) and so I know approximately how heavy any particular bag or brewing bucket is. So today I diverted about 55 or 60 kg from landfill into my lovely compost heaps.
I know I've got OCD (Obsessive Composting Disorder) but at least it's a healthy pro-sustainability obsession. I also love doing my dried fruit on the logstove. I gave Richard a selection including blackberry and apple leather, pomegranate and apple leather, pear slices, apple rings, experimental dried lychee blobs, melon strips, mango slices, a single strip of pawpaw, a jar or stove-dried raisins and ditto of stove-dried bananas. Richard wanted to have a snack which was healthier than biscuits, so he was happy with the delicious fruit.
When I got home I bunged some of the manky stuff on the current heap and then I started to prepare the leafmold for this year's seed compost. I collect aunumn leaves from the side of roads, Windmill Lane is good as I can cycle fast down it and then put my booted foot down in the gutter and scrape up a big pile of leaves as I come to a halt. Then I put this pile in the trailer and do another acceleration and foot down scraping action for another load. All these leaves are collected in a chicken wire leaf-mold holder and left for a year. Before I collect the next year's autumn crop, I put the partly rotted leafmold into plastic sacks, removing 'contraries' as I do this (fag ends, plastic bits, broken glass etc) and also sticks which go into the fruit/veg compost. A year later these bags are rotaseived into a 'dalek' composter, layered with comfrey leaves to add some nutrients. This well rotted and by now very fine material is an excellent alternative to peat, and I use it in seed compost as the major constituent, and in my potting composts as a third of the mix. So I got together a sack of ready-to-use leafmold and also riddled (with the rotaseive) some fresh stuff into the top of the dalek. No comfrey at this time of year, but it isn't essential.
I went to the school with my wife to meet with one of my boy's teachers, to discuss how he was doing. Apparently his behaviour is OK at school, and he keeps his loud outbursts for us at home. This is very common, as other parents have mentioned it. Both boys requested 'bundles' when they got home, so I obliged after a half hour of bow-sawing some oak logs. I like to do a bit of logging fairly often. The bundling was a little rough but tea being served put a stop to it.
Tea was omlette done on the woodstove, even though Gill said it wasn't hot enough and would make a rubbery omlette. If I lived by myself I wouldn't eat omlette, infact I probably wouldn't eat eggs, as I would probably go vegan. A vegan lifestyle is the lowest carbon diet, and of course it's the most respectful of animals. It's funny, I love animals but would prefer not to see them in the fields or being used as pets or for entertainment, unless they were wild animals such as birds in the garden and other wildlife. I like the spiders and the silverfish sharing the house with us, though. But not mice, which I admit to trapping and composting. Mice in the house are not acceptable, mice in the compost heaps are. Rats in the compost heaps are not acceptable and I disturb them to encourage them to go elsewhere. It's odd, I have different standards!
I know I've got OCD (Obsessive Composting Disorder) but at least it's a healthy pro-sustainability obsession. I also love doing my dried fruit on the logstove. I gave Richard a selection including blackberry and apple leather, pomegranate and apple leather, pear slices, apple rings, experimental dried lychee blobs, melon strips, mango slices, a single strip of pawpaw, a jar or stove-dried raisins and ditto of stove-dried bananas. Richard wanted to have a snack which was healthier than biscuits, so he was happy with the delicious fruit.
When I got home I bunged some of the manky stuff on the current heap and then I started to prepare the leafmold for this year's seed compost. I collect aunumn leaves from the side of roads, Windmill Lane is good as I can cycle fast down it and then put my booted foot down in the gutter and scrape up a big pile of leaves as I come to a halt. Then I put this pile in the trailer and do another acceleration and foot down scraping action for another load. All these leaves are collected in a chicken wire leaf-mold holder and left for a year. Before I collect the next year's autumn crop, I put the partly rotted leafmold into plastic sacks, removing 'contraries' as I do this (fag ends, plastic bits, broken glass etc) and also sticks which go into the fruit/veg compost. A year later these bags are rotaseived into a 'dalek' composter, layered with comfrey leaves to add some nutrients. This well rotted and by now very fine material is an excellent alternative to peat, and I use it in seed compost as the major constituent, and in my potting composts as a third of the mix. So I got together a sack of ready-to-use leafmold and also riddled (with the rotaseive) some fresh stuff into the top of the dalek. No comfrey at this time of year, but it isn't essential.
I went to the school with my wife to meet with one of my boy's teachers, to discuss how he was doing. Apparently his behaviour is OK at school, and he keeps his loud outbursts for us at home. This is very common, as other parents have mentioned it. Both boys requested 'bundles' when they got home, so I obliged after a half hour of bow-sawing some oak logs. I like to do a bit of logging fairly often. The bundling was a little rough but tea being served put a stop to it.
Tea was omlette done on the woodstove, even though Gill said it wasn't hot enough and would make a rubbery omlette. If I lived by myself I wouldn't eat omlette, infact I probably wouldn't eat eggs, as I would probably go vegan. A vegan lifestyle is the lowest carbon diet, and of course it's the most respectful of animals. It's funny, I love animals but would prefer not to see them in the fields or being used as pets or for entertainment, unless they were wild animals such as birds in the garden and other wildlife. I like the spiders and the silverfish sharing the house with us, though. But not mice, which I admit to trapping and composting. Mice in the house are not acceptable, mice in the compost heaps are. Rats in the compost heaps are not acceptable and I disturb them to encourage them to go elsewhere. It's odd, I have different standards!
Thursday, 22 February 2007
21 Feb 07
Today Keely the York Rotters worker phoned first thing and asked if I'd go to St. Nicks and present some composting info to a group of kids from Harrogate who were coming over to visit the Environment Centre. Keely was unable to do it as her son was off school ill, so I agreed to be there for 12.30 and do three 15 or 20 min spots. I do a compostables colletion on Wednesdays so I cycled to town at full speed, trailer rattleing, and went to Out Of This World, just one potato sack of biodegradables today, perhaps 20 kg. I popped into the shop too as my wife wanted some vegan pate, and OOTW is just about the only place I can buy this. I could go to Alligator but although it's nearer, it's off my usual route, and I'm a shareholder in the Creative Cooperative Ltd, who are the parent company for OOTW, so I don't have a problem buying stuff there.
Came home via Oxfam, who have the cheapest 600g 'fair trade' coffee, one of my addictions. I'm not sure how 'low carbon' one of these tins is every 8 weeks or so, but the fair trade-ness makes me feel better about drinking coffee. I've tried two other brands and definitely prefer Cafe Direct.
Home just in time to say bye to my wife who's off to Scarborough by train to see Uncle Tom who's had a fall and is in hospital. We're both very fond of him and hope that if he has to move out of his current housing, because of his increasing care needs, he'll be able to come to York.
Made the usual large pile of sandwiches for lunch and quickly gathered my composting stuff together; a bag of finished compost, an old duvet cover to riddle onto, and my Rotaseive. Kids love having a go with the Rotaseive, a circular riddle which has a handle to move a bar over the top surface of the mesh, allowing the small composted particles fall through, leaving sticks and larger bits in the riddle for putting back in the compost heap, or using for mulch. The 3 talks went well, the groups also having a talk about the wind turbine and the recycling work that St. Nicks does.
Home in time to cycle to school and pick up my children, and we all cycled home after I had collected fruit skins/cores from the playground bins and popped them in one of the 'dalek' bins I've installed at school. I do wish the school had a proper system for collecting this material seperately. I'm sure the children would be willing to put the materials in the correct contaainer if only they were labelled correctly. I am loth to hassle the school AGAIN about this... so I just get on with what I can do.
Came home via Oxfam, who have the cheapest 600g 'fair trade' coffee, one of my addictions. I'm not sure how 'low carbon' one of these tins is every 8 weeks or so, but the fair trade-ness makes me feel better about drinking coffee. I've tried two other brands and definitely prefer Cafe Direct.
Home just in time to say bye to my wife who's off to Scarborough by train to see Uncle Tom who's had a fall and is in hospital. We're both very fond of him and hope that if he has to move out of his current housing, because of his increasing care needs, he'll be able to come to York.
Made the usual large pile of sandwiches for lunch and quickly gathered my composting stuff together; a bag of finished compost, an old duvet cover to riddle onto, and my Rotaseive. Kids love having a go with the Rotaseive, a circular riddle which has a handle to move a bar over the top surface of the mesh, allowing the small composted particles fall through, leaving sticks and larger bits in the riddle for putting back in the compost heap, or using for mulch. The 3 talks went well, the groups also having a talk about the wind turbine and the recycling work that St. Nicks does.
Home in time to cycle to school and pick up my children, and we all cycled home after I had collected fruit skins/cores from the playground bins and popped them in one of the 'dalek' bins I've installed at school. I do wish the school had a proper system for collecting this material seperately. I'm sure the children would be willing to put the materials in the correct contaainer if only they were labelled correctly. I am loth to hassle the school AGAIN about this... so I just get on with what I can do.
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