Its 25ºF out there....(minus 4 celsius) and there is still snow on the ground that fell a month ago, no sign of any thaw yet. Well, it is a week before winter is officially here so I guess these temperatures are not too bad.

We're expecting a lot of snow tonight and tomorrow...much like the rest of the north-east and mid-west U.S. Maybe as much as 12 - 15 inches. In our terms it sounds a lot more....30 - 40 centimetres.

My compost (I have 3 bins) is covered with black plastic right now and snow is covering that but I have left a corner open so that I can add when I need to, which is about every two weeks.

My neighbour is a weekend visitor to his home here on the lake but when he does come he eats well. Many fruits and vegetables are his usual diet.

We have a, what we call, a "Green" program here. Communities throughout Ontario are encouraged to put into a pail all food that can be composted. It is then picked up on regular garbage pick up days and taken to a central place where composting by the region is carried out. My neighbour knows that I take from anybody and everybody what they put into their pails and today he gave me his 4 bag pail plus another pailful that he brought up from the city....just for me. Very secure it was.

So with all that I have and with what he gave me, I had to open the corner and get it all in there.

Well, the first bag was stuff that was dry and I use an old shovel handle to poke into the pile and work it around opening up a hole to which I bring the new stuff into.

Well, since it was so dry, I instead opened it up with hands and poked the stuff down. Much to my surpise...although expecting somewhat, it was darn hot down there. Not burning hot like it gets in the summer, but still its been pretty cold for a long time.

Just goes to show --its still working.

I then poked more holes and got all 7 bags of the most delicious fruit and vegetables down into it that surely will help it hold onto warmth.