Garden Compost Bin 2022

Last year I was spending a lot of time outside preparing the garden in January and February, getting ready for spring. This year I haven't been out much at all. This year I'm working long hours as a nanny and preparing for Spring is on my back burner. I am looking forward to some garden time, though, in the next few months. It will be nice to get things cleaned up and seeds in the ground.

Today I want to share pictures of my compost bin, which was a project I did last spring/summer. There's some concern with attracting rats, so I made an enclosed structure so they can't get in. 

Above image is construction part-way complete.

I mostly used materials laying around the yard, but Jacob and I picked up a few new boards for the front of the compost bin. They slide in and out, so they can be removed board by board and replaced board by board.

It's nice to know I will have some good rich decomposed compost to mix into my garden soil this spring! I used a pitchfork to turn the compost over quite a bit through the summer and fall, though I haven't been out as much in the cold of winter. Receiving over-ripe produce and grass clippings etc. from my local community has boosted the content I had to process through my three bins, and quite a bit of it was already 90% decomposed by the time I let it be to winter quietly. It will be fun to see how much progress it's made come spring! Of course it won't decompose as fast without being mixed up, but it's sure to have broken down at least a little bit on its own. Nature is an ever-working process.

Juxtaposition

In Jeremiah chapter 31, two very different pictures are described. One describes a time when all sorrow is washed away, and the people are filled with the peace of the Lord and radiant joy. The other describes a grieving parent, and the enveloping nature of such loss. What use of juxtaposition! Two very different things, placed side by side, that we may notice the contrast between them. I enjoy reading both of these scriptures. The sad one, because it's very validating in grief. The happy one, because it is so, so, SO beautiful. Sometimes I just stare at it and read it over and over. It's worth doing. That is all for today.

James 1:22-25

When we spend time reading the scripture (or listening to an audiobook of scripture!) we are bathed in truth. We are looking into a mirror that speaks identity over us. When we only read scripture occasionally, it's easier to forget who we really are. It's easier to behave differently than who we truly are. There's no legalistic requirement for "how much" scripture reading is "enough", and we will all go through different seasons of life. It's okay to read more scripture in some seasons (to stare into that mirror frequently) and to read less scripture in other seasons (to stare into that mirror less frequently). So long as we have a foundation in scripture and have spent a long time staring into that mirror, we can sustain times of busy-ness where we seek the Lord more so in the internal place and less so in the external disciplines. 

But all that said, I hope each person reading this is drawn into a season of more scripture, more digging deep, more staring into the mirror of Christ. Blessings.

In the image, the mirror reads:

Healed - Light

Peace - Clean - Pure

Holy - Glorious - Fruitful

Justified - Forgiven - Righteous

Dead to sin - Free - Conquerer 

Child of God - Inheritance

No Condemnation

Grace - Faith - Heir - Loving

The Mind of Christ

Temple of the Holy Spirit

Bought at a price - Loved

Body of Christ - Victorious

New Creation - Blessed

Saint - Chosen - Redeemed

Capable - Blameless - Rooted

Born again - Abundance

Spirit-filled

Don't be a Flat Squirrel

I like this quote. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for making wrong decisions, but sometimes there is no wrong decision. What's for dinner? Hamburgers? Spaghetti? Shepherd's pie? Rice-a-roni? There is no wrong decision. The only wrong decision is to make no decision, to skip dinner and go to bed hungry. So no matter what the decision is, it is good. Jacob and I have absorbed this quote into the vernacular of our marriage... we will tease each other by saying "You're being a flat squirrel right now," when we want to gently nudge the other to just make up their mind about something. The comic relief is instant, and it can ease decision fatigue to have that reminder. The visual here is, of course, a squirrel running across the road when a car is coming. The squirrel can't decide if it should turn back or keep going straight. It has enough time either way, but as it hovers in the middle of the road with indecision, suddenly it is out of time and gets squished. So even if neither option seems desirable, it really is better to just pick one and get it over with, to avoid being stuck in that place of decision fatigue. That is all I have to share this week. Go forth and make decisions! Blessings.