Revising My Compost Bin

A couple years ago, following the instructions on an Internet video, I created a compost bin out of an old garbage can! I was delighted with myself. And, on down the road, with the compost. Which...composted rather slowly...and which I did not therefore use that regularly. But this year's balsam seeds, planted in a bed enriched by compost, have risen. Looking ginormously healthy.

So this year I revised my compost bin. This was like creating and revising a poem. I thought about it, I gathered materials (boards at hand in the woodpile, the usual suspects of pitchfork and hose), and, without nails or hammer, assembled a diamond inside a square former sandbox, into which I dumped the compost, covering it with re-purposed boards that can be easily lifted to add more compost or to stir it or to scoop it out for use.The earthworms---already in the earth!---can easily find it, and no more insects will die, trapped inside a plastic former garbage can, unless they want to live their entire life eating compost.There are holes in the boards or slats between them...so they can get out!

Anyhoo. It's been that kind of day, and that kind of spring. Many, many small things accomplished daily in dribs and drabs, and much blooming. Currently: gloriosa daisies, purple echinacea, yellow snapdragons, blue lobelia, pale blue flax, the trellis roses, the pinks, blue and red grape spiderwort, and the ginormous golden columbine. Plus, stuff in hanging pots!

Sudden poem acceptances---yay! Tomorrow I attend a gala honoring wonderful local history makers. (I wrote the script for the entertainment at this event, performed by some marvelous singers and musicians, and directed by Rhys Lovell, himself a brilliant actor...who was a little boy when I was a teen summer drama workshop leader for the Parks & Recreation Department. Ah, life.) Friday I attend the showcase performance of the Young at Heartland theatre troupe, people 55+ who have taken up acting later in life, often after their careers in something else, or during their careers in something else. It's been a joy to work with them as an instructor in their current session. Many thanks to Julie Kistler for covering these and other theatre and arts events in A Follow Spot.

Hmm, speaking of a follow spot...this isn't that. It looks more like a movie projector, right? Projecting a bird. Anyway, today, you can find the neato, cool, "Dear Teen Me" poet Kelly Cockerham (and a "Mockingbird") up at Escape Into Life, with art by Ryan Mrozowski, which you also see here. In Dead Men's Float, The Enthusiasts, and Bird Test. It's a Random Coinciday and a Poetry Someday on the Hump of the Week.