We seem to have come full circle – or are we just running around in one?
…..about time I caught someone.
Apart from that, we’ve had our knuckles rapped for letting things get out of hand:
the boxes were beginning to look like a neglected industrial estate, four boxes a bit pell-mell, blue plastic sheeting flapping in the wind and huge pieces of cardboard cluttering up the place and covering the village pump that Peter Simpson uses to keep the rose garden bird bath filled (on the regrettably rare occasions when nature does not do so).
The problem, as you know, has been the weather. Our boxes were not designed for a year-round monsoon, water got inside and stopped the compost maturing – so we could not deliver compost and needed more and more boxes and worked hard with lots of help from all sorts of lovely people to seal boxes and keep the compost warm and dry. In the end we used the donated blue plastic sheets – giving the place a somewhat disreputable air.
So, after a little conference on site with Jo and Adam we decided
1) to get rid of excess cardboard – done in the middle of last week’s dustmen’s strike
2) remove the plastic sheets and find some other way to waterproof the boxes (done today, taking advantage of a sunny spell: I did not have a power tool to unscrew some battens securing the sheets so just cut around them to remove the ‘blue’; I found a suitable rubber weather strip to seal the gap where the lid opens and used various caulking compounds to seal the huge gaps between the planks forming the top – I ran out of colourless sealant which hardly notices and ended up using brilliant white – I put some dirt on it to tone it down – anyway, we’ll see how well and how long it works. For safety I put the plastic sheets inside, in the hope of catching any water still getting inside. Adam will have a chat with the supplier to see if there are any better ideas (also to fix box 3, the southernmost, where the front is coming loose).
3) realign the boxes to make the place look more tidy – this is still to be done, perhaps when we are ready to deliver compost, after a spell of warm dry weather.
There has also been some discussion of moving two of the boxes into Adelaide (as originally planned) but that can only be done if someone comes forward to take full responsibility for running them and so far there are no takers, so the idea has been dropped
While I was working, Devin Gibson came by on his bike adding to the compost – we talked about the dustmen’s strike bringing home to us how much stuff we use and then just chuck away every day – so lets keep up the good work, everyone. We also have additional people wishing to join – this Newsletter extends a warm welcome to all good people – Trish and I will be writing to them individually.
and
…..see you at the village pump, one sunny day.