The forecast calls for snow!

Yup it's true. One to two inches of the stuff by morning.

But...

The forecast also calls for temperatures in the 60s by the weekend. Welcome to the high desert mountain region of central Idaho.

And...

As of today I have almost completed the new composting structure. So far I have only invested a half an hour of time and a couple of new self tapping screws into the structure itself. I did however spend about an hour regrading the area where I am to install it.

Here is an overall update photo of the backyard. The compost is to the right of the shed. The dog in the foreground of the photo is a new found friend who comes to visit daily, Jackson the Dog, and in the background is my ever faithful companion and friend, Tucker the Dog. They have both been contributing daily to the toils in the yard. And... all of my gardening planning will be affected to some degree by the Tuckster. i.e. additional fencing around the composting, fencing around the veggie beds, etc, etc... Wouldn't have it any other way though.

Oh and note the last little pile of debris near Jackson to be taken out with the trash on Wednesday. Then, all that will be left will be organic material in the yard. Well, except for the dang cigarette butts...

And here is a photo of the compost structure.

It doesn't look like much, in fact it kind of looks like it is being created to keep in some sort of animal, but hopefully it will someday contain some really nice decaying organic matter. With earthworms to boot.

First though, I need to learn a little about layering the green and the brown and adding moisture and turning properly and keeping the dog out and keeping other critters out and well...first I have to finish creating it. It's not that stable yet. If you look closely the branches to the right are hopefully to be used to create some sort of fencing. Perhaps...

As I am looking at the photos I really cannot wait until some color is to be found in the yard.

Whilst it snows outside...

Yes, it's snowing and sleeting and raining and dripping and generally just not the type of day where you want to be outside. Unless of course you are a duck, a frog or perhaps an earthworm and earthworms are aplenty in the backyard.

The beginning of this week more time was spent in the backyard cleaning and removing debris and...under all the debris I found big fat earthworms. I wish I had a picture or two of the nice big fat earthworms but I only took a few more pictures of the debris in the yard. The following two pictures are some of what was found just outside the french doors to the back yard.

Wednesday is trash day though and all has now been carted away. I now have a blank, albeit leafy, twiggy, cigarette butt strewn canvas to work with.

And...

My soil blocks have sprouted! There are little green shoots poking out of a few of them and the ones that don't have green shoots poking out the top I checked the bottom and they have root growth. The root growth blocks are bib lettuce and the green shoot blocks are eggplant and lovage.

Lookee here!

Also, my composting expirement in the kitchen has almost reached a point where the scraps need to be posted to a pile out of doors. The compost structure needs to be built though. The plan for now is to create one from what once was a metal futon frame found in the backyard. It will be a three sided structure with some sort of removable door on the front. The door may be made from a discarded piece of plywood that I saw the other day on our daily canyon hike. As a bonus the piece of plywood has already been painted an attractive green. I do need to inspect it for rot and general usability though.

Bowl #1 - Coffee grounds to be used in homemade fertilizer

Bowl #2 - Kitchen scraps to be composted

Bowl #3 - Recyclables






Old futon frame soon to be a compost enclosure.

Looking forward to a less wet day tomorrow so I can get to work outside again!