Sunday 3rd May 09

Woke slowly and suddenly realised that I had a visitor booked in to arrive at 9.30 so leapt up and raced downstairs and gobbled breakfast and was washed, dressed and outside the front by 9.30 when Gordon from Freecycle arrived with his female friend who's name I've forgotten.

He had posted on Freecycle that he wanted some compost so I replied that I could let him have a bag of it for free but if he wanted multiple bags, I'd like a donation. He said that he wanted to grow a few vegetables so I emailed back that I'd let him have some Jack Edwards Climbing Pea Beans as well. So, we'd already had a lengthy email conversation before he arrived.

I gave them a tour of the compost-making facilities and he had got a 35 litre rucsack and a bin liner, which we filled with riddled best mature! He was very happy with the beans too, and gave me a donation for them. I hope we meet again as he seemed like a very nice chap.

I then set off for Rowntree Park where York Rotters was holding it's annual Worm Charming competition. The aim of this is to try to get earthworms living in grassland to come up onto the surface, buy running on the spot, drumming, putting water on the soil and other methods. The secondary aim (primary perhaps!) is to have a compost information stall which dispenses advice, leaflets etc. I arrived in time to help set out the plots, although Catherine's husband was already on the case with the tapes marking out the 2m x 2m squares. I did some announcing with my big voice, and we got most of the 16 plots filled with a team. Kate and I dispensed pond water from watering cans when requested, but there was a severe lack of worms... not surprising as the Park 'lawn' was post-flood, almost devoid of grass, and very very compacted.

In the 30 minutes, with perhaps 30 people drumming, jumping, wiggling forks and banging metal waste-paper bins with drumsticks, and lots of water, only ONE worm was found! The winning worm was only about 2cm long as well! But, a good time was had by all, and the stall attracted a lot of interest and I talked to a few people about composting, and helped them find leaflets about Bokashi, composting in yards, dealing with rats and reduced price compost bins, all of which they took away to peruse at leisure.

I came back via Country Fresh and brought back a couple of sacks of compostables, a pallet and some scrap wood for the stove.

Lunch was delicious... avocado sandwich and hommous sandwich.

I did some emailing etc whilst listening to Gardeners Question Time and then went out into the garden... and spent the whole afternoon there. Bliss. Friendly robins, really cheeky birds, completely unfazed by human presence, including perching on me from time to time, and allowing me to watch within centimetres its foraging in the compost heap I was turning. At one stage, one of them had 8 prey animals in its beak... a centipede, several beetle larvae, an adult staphylinid beetle, a couple of pupating beetles... and I was less than 20 cm away. I did a lot of compost management, dug out several bins including the Compostumbler. I also did a load of weeding, some more hedge cutting... a lovely several hours.

Came in for tea at 7. Did lots of fruit for drying. Washed up too. Busy busy busy...

Sunday 4th May 08

A very peaceful start to the day.

The day continued peacefully.

I half-watched Countryfile whilst doing a huge pile of washing up, the only complaints were that I'd made the living room too hot by lighting the stove to get washing up water.... but not a problem. I'd rather light the stove and burn a kilo of waste wood to get some hot water than put on the gas for a few minutes.... and it helps dry the bananas which are sitting on the wok-stand on top of the two-gallon pan.

I had an early lunch and set off with my eldest son to Rowntree Park to attend the York Rotters Worm Charming contest, with Gill and our youngest following on afterwards. I helped set up the grid of 16 squares 2m x 2m on the grass, and entrants started registering, including our two boys. I did some announcing with my loud voice and soon the event was underway.

Gill and I joined in with our boys attempts to get worms out of the soil and we got four by the end of the 15 minutes allotted time. However, a minute later, I spotted another one and I didn't stop to think and popped it into the pot. When the adjudicator counted the worms, our team was in equal first place with 5 worms. So there was a 'charm-off' with the two top teams going back to their plots and the first team to charm a worm was the winner. Gill and I encouraged ours to do lots of jumping up and down, and suddenly, there was the winning worm...

So they walked away with their prize, a 'Junior Wormery' by Original Organics, and I cycled it home. However, I had a niggly thought that I had cheated by putting in a charmed worm after the time had passed... and I shared my feelings with my eldest who has a keen sense of fair play and honesty, and I admitted to my wrongdoing. We decided that the best thing to do would be to tell Catherine the Rotters project manager, and to give the wormery prize back so it could go to the real winners. I offered to give one of my wormeries to the boys as a consolation, as I have three different types. This made me feel better. I blame my lack of impulse control and lack of 'thinking of consequenses', both of which I am aware of when I stop and think.

In the evening I came accross a good blog http://gco2e.blogspot.com/ which is worth reading if interested in carbon footprints etc.