Cue Scooby-Doo time warp music and cartoon/psychedelic graphics; step back to early spring, 2009. Driving down an unknown road between Allentown and Quakertown to meet an unknown person at a previously unknown site. It was a dark and rainy night...
Actually, it was a cold and cheerful morning and I was buying a still-in-the box, never used composter from a woman who worked at an upscale Bucks County restaurant. I had been using a garbage can that I had drilled several hundred holes into, but it didn't make compost; it made swamp mud. I needed help. Craigslist to the rescue! I felt out of place, meeting her in the entryway of the 18th century pub in my work shirt and jeans, but her ad never mentioned a dress code. Much to my relief, we completed our transaction in the parking lot and the composter was mine.
I have been dumping my considerable vegetable and gardening scraps into the black box all summer, where they have been dutifully decomposing. I throw the occasional lost worm in there as well, and hope for the best. Like magic, the pile goes from tall to short, with no effort on my part but an occasional grimace and turn with a short pitchfork. I have decided that today, with the help of my two soon-to-be greener (and dirtier!) grandsons, the compost bin will divulge her secrets and offer her jewels up to my water-logged city garden. I will introduce my grandsons to the mysteries of life and death, and the inevitable wheel we're all riding. Let the games begin!
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