Compost Rules!

I love composting. For real. It fascinates me and makes me happy. I keep a bucket on the back steps and dump all the veggie scraps, coffee grounds, and other stuff into the bucket. Once a week it gets dumped into the compost bin in the back yard. It's fascinating to see the pile of last weeks food waste turning, becoming soil, taking on a new purpose and giving back to the soil.

When I lived in NYC, I was one of those dorks who composted with earthworms in a black bucket. Go figure, I freaked if there was a cockroach in the apartment, but I gleefully brought in the earthworms. Composting back then allowed me to feel connected to the soil and the nature I was missing.

I'm blogging about my compost bin not because my life is that boring, but because from the compost bin, a tomato plant is growing. It's getting large, and now it's flowering! I want to see if it will produce tomatoes. If it does, they'll be some wacky heirloom varitey, which would thrill me. I'm excited to see this tomato plant grow and thrive without any help from me. This heap is teeming with earthworms, and the soil is rich, dark, and fragrant (kinda like the coffee grounds that go in!). I'll post if the thing actually produces.

No life?

Okay, so it's been nearly a month since I've blogged. I was going to blog about the non-cycling aspects of my life here.

Does not blogging = no life (off the bike, or otherwise)?

Perhaps.

Let's see.... my REI Adventures guide gig kicks off in full this weekend. In addition to Hiking with Dogs, I'm co-leading the Women's Mountain Biking trips. (okay, so it's back to being about the bike, eh?)

The earth has shifted: my pally-o Justine got engaged. She's bored at her job, so watch out: there's serious Bridezilla Potential. Too much random obsessing and pondering can lead even the most normal chick into a Bridezillian state.

Got in a couple decent hikes lately. Got stung by a yellow jacket, with no epi pen in sight. Lived to tell.

The rest of this month is going to be action-packed (read: insane) with guiding, working at the ad-gig, a double century, and to culminate the month....my 36th Birthday. birthdaybirthdaybirthday.

Good and Bad news: The Ad Gig will dry up next month. They finally hired someone full time. I'll wrap up the week of August 8th. I'm very much looking forward to this, but will definitely miss the cash flow this has infused into my life since February.
I had no idea the gig would run this long! As a freelancer, you never know.

What else? I'm trying, rather unsucessfully, to give up processed foods and sugar. It's alternately amusing or torture-inducing. I'm very very happy that strawberries and blueberries are in season, though.

The dogs are both doing well right now. "Well" means no worse, and no better, which is pretty darn good to me.

I miss a lot of friends, both local and in Yosemite. I've not gotten to the Valley this summer to see any of my pals. I look forward to having a bit more free time soon.