Les Bonnes Choses

I'm a bit of a green poser. On one hand, we own a car and a motorcycle and are presently shopping for an SUV. Sure, I rationalize the motorcycle as being more fuel efficient than a car, but it is much less fuel efficient than, and lacks the health benefits of riding my bike -- and I tend to ride my motorcycle for the sort of short trips that would be suitable for bike riding. On the other hand, there is usually a bowl of kitchen scraps on our counter, which I diligently reserve for the compost bin at the side of our house. We refer to this bowl of rotting vegetable matter as "the salad", though we now have to be a bit more precise about this because Jude often uses the word 'salad' to refer to any vegetable matter, including the vegetables to be found in his food. And while I encourage a hesitancy to eat rotting food, I'm always concerned that we're not getting enough vegetables.

A quick aside: about 2 months ago, I had been feeling really lethargic for a the better part of a week when I realized that I hadn't really eaten vegetables (potatoes don't count) since the previous Sunday. I believe I grilled some vegetables that night, and felt like Superman the next day.

Anyways, we now refer to the bowl of kitchen scraps as "garbage salad", and while I wouldn't want to divert all that stuff to a landfill where it mummifies in an anoxic environment (at least, according the Ontario Science Center exhibit), it would be preferable to not have to trudge out to the side of the house. I'm not sure if I'd want to spend $400 on it, but this would solve all my problems. Or all the ones related to rotted food, at least.

Hello again, Antarctica! I imagine an outdoor compost bin is a little trickier down there.

Update: I went to the naturemill.com website, and as I looked at their various models, I started to wonder whether it might be possible to hack together something similar using some sort of box with a fan and hey their product looks like old computer tower case...