I wish I could sleep like all the grasshoppers who fiddled through fall do.

After I get my 2024 compostables in bins, I hope to work on 2024's wood pile.

I slept through Oct. evidently. I'm starting to be like Klem.

Lazy as hell.

It's a good time for sleeping, even my compost piles are mostly asleep. About all i do this time of year is add kitchen scraps and fish scraps, covered with a layer of leaves. Haven't added any critters lately as I put them out for the owls & foxes.

I will have compost ready in the spring to add to my perennial beds & raised vegetable beds.

Ooo, very pretty.

Ooo Ann , cattywampus is flattered. Old_dirt's raised bed is right looksum to. (Looksum= Festus Hagen speak)

Those beds are gorgeous!

Several mean looking felines have appeared in my garden. Maybe I shouldn't put the turkey carcass in the compost bin.

Oh, is cattywampus yours? Very pretty. I thought she was a stock photo.

"Several mean looking felines". Not a cat person, flora?

floral_uk - glad I'm not the only one to put critters in the compost. Cats, opossums & fox all visit my piles. In the winter they keep it stirred up - benefit!

I don't mind cats in theory and I'd take a cat over a dog any day. But I don't want them in my garden. I've seen too many nestlings massacred and with our depleted avian fauna cats are a menace. There are two really massive toms around here who just look plain angry.

Can't say I get critters snoozing on the compost. I do cold compost cages, heh. I do also need to dump the kitchen pot into the compost tumbler out the back door. My two porch cats have a weird fondness for the compost tea that collects out of it. And it's good for watering my plants.

Not sure what the two porch cats do to the local birds, but the incidents of rodents coming into the house has gone down to zero.

Two things happened simultaneously in 1994: I quit mowing and my cats became indoor cats for the rest of their long lives. All because of ground nesting juncos I found in my lawn. I have no lawn now---just a mess I try to beat down. It suits me, though.

I can't put hairy, fleshy things in my compost. I've done cooked meat and covet fish, but I can't do a mouse. I composted a fur hat of my grandmother's once, then screamed every time I turned the pile.

Domestic cats might be one of the most controversial creatures on earth. They are the only cat species that doesn't self regulate their population to fit their habitat. A single cat can cause never ending friction between multiple households. In the interest of neighborhood tranquility and peace I have a suggestion. Before you blast me,would you rather your beloved cat to disappear, come home toting a .177 air gun pellet or with ego hurt but smarter?

Here's how I first came across it and adapted it to other situations since.

My two cats were relentlessly trying to get at 6 week old chicks in a wire mesh tractor so I set tractor on pvc pipe for insulation then connected a livestock fence charger to the mesh. Never saw cats near tractor again. When chicks were older I let them out when i got home from work each afternoon. Grasshoppers were abundant and it was entertaining to watch chicks chase them. When cats saw chicks coming their direction they reacted as if chicks were Rottweilers.

Biologists have determined most creatures must be taught by their mother what is prey and what must be avoided. It is widely accepted that good mousers have been taught by their mother. Each time I've had a predator problem with free range chickens and quail I place a caged bird in the most likely place a predator would find then attempt to attack it. It does appear that once one generation has been taught to avoid chickens and quail, re-educating is only necessary when strangers migrate into the area.. Pet deterrent devices aren't near as effective as livestock versions.

In floral's case I suspect backyard bird feeders are magnets for cats. I would suggest one or more artificial decoys resembling the species of bird most commonly found at feeder. Enhance attractiveness of decoy with tuna fish or other food odors. For veggie garden or flower bed the decoy could be about anything that looks out of place. That is to say creatures can be made to fear an oversized rabbit but hawks and owls might work better.

I wonder how many realize old_dirt's philosophy is actually foward thinking. USDA,water control boards and state health departments are increasing regulations on how dead livestock can be disposed of. Composting is gaining acceptance by farmers and regulators. Backyard composters can learn from methods used to control odors and prevention of animals digging carcasses up. I've joked with OD about it but in fact some folks are choosing to compost relatives rather than burial or entombment. Texas allows human burial anywhere with approval of property owner. That being the case there's probably no reason one can't chose to be composted then spread on their homeplace.

If "Necessity is the mother of invention" I see compost turner becoming a profession alongside dog walker.

I definitely approve of composting dead animals; I just can't do it. I certainly could in a wild compost that I had no intention of flipping. There are five dead pets buried around my steps . Literally. Two cats died last winter and I buried them where you step off the steps onto the ground. Every time you enter my place you step on top of where a buried cat is. It seemed like the last place I would plant something, except that I immediately planted a bunch of hyacinths, which you also step on when you step off the steps.

Gerbils, rats, birds all have ended up in my compost heap. All natural deaths except the rats.

Does a feather pillow count?

Yes, and so do mink coats.

I just use cardboard/paper in the compost cages- helps line the walls as stuff gets dumped in. Mostly kitchen scraps, yard and garden debris. Usually not dead stuff, heh. The cages sit cold, it takes extra forever for that sort of stuff to break down.

I have acerage, and that stuff gets used out there. Old natural fabrics and clothes go to smother layers in "borders", or tossed/draped into drop wood berms. Got lots of drop wood all the time. Natural fabrics help collect debris and gets picked apart as they break down. The berms shelter wildlife and break down into water movement direction. Random big bones or carcasses have a couple spots they can get dropped.

I bury my cats, and I know where they are. Previous owners buried a lot of stuff out back, they had various animals over their decades here. I have no idea where.

At three cents per oz ($2 for 1/2 gallon) household ammonia will discourage animals from prowling bins in search of kitchen scraps.

Don't think I've ever even seen a mink coat but did once compost an ancient horsehair mattress.

Unbeknowst to me, I slept on an ancient horsehair mattress in England once---maybe near Bristol? It was a very old coach stop and inn and dairy farm with ceilings about 5 1/2 feet tall. I woke to find the contour sheet had popped off the mattress and I was hugging some godawful experience.

My grandmother had a mink coat and a mink hat and a muskrat coat and my mother had a mink stole. I composted the hat and was so creeped out by the expereince---not to mention worried about the 1940s tanning process---that I took all the rest out into the woods and laid it on the ground where the hides became slimy and gross.

After sleeping on Granny's feather filled mattresses and pillows we had feathers in our hair,in our ears and up our nose. With his full beard my uncle was frightful.

I bet you weren't as creeped by the hat as little creatures unexpectedly coming upon those things in the woods.

Good to know I'm not the only one that composts some weird things.

klem1 - It may be "forward thinking" now but it's kind of backward thinking for me. I remember on the farm, we quite often threw dead animals in the compost, from chickens & rabbits to youn goats and even day old calves. It could be really nasty when my brother and I had to turn the piles, coming on the half decomposed remains with all the maggots. On the bright side, the maggots did make good fish bait, when you had the stomach to collect them.

About the feathers, we had feather pillows and yeah, waking up with the feathers in your nose was an experience.

We still have feather pillows. And duvets. The ticking prevents feather escape. Mostly ...

Nobody in our family could ever have afforded a fur coat although one grandmother had a fox scarf thing. It was horrific, with beady eyes and little paws hanging down.

The horse hair mattress I composted was actually in Bristol. Maybe it was yours, annpat?

I've heard Brits occasionally hide their life savings in a mattress. I hope you performed a necropsy before tossing that mattress.

Well I hope that any gold coins would survive the composting process. And I haven't dug any up yet.

Take out rat anyone? This guy was caught in my allotment tool box. It composted nicely.

Man, he looks well-fed!! I'll never eat take-out again.

Yes. S/he'd move into the box with a large supply of greengage stones piled up in the corner and a lovely soft roll of horticultural fleece for bedding. All set for a cosy winter and probably looking forward to my first doomed sowing of fava beans.

Is an allotment in UK;

(A) Always/ normally an area where vegetables are grown?

(B) In a communal arrangement of multiple plots,each being maintained by individual households?

(C) Normally rented rather than owned?

Of terms I might use to describe your allotment ramshackle certainly isn't one of them. I love it!

IMO the USA would be a better place if the pratice was adopted and promoted. If I could change one thing about way of life in the states being resourceful should be incumbent on every citizen. Produce growers can't find people willing to work for wages nor in exchange for vegetables. Retailers.manufactures and other businesses can't find people to work. People line up for free groceries being handed out Saturday mornings.

You've spurred me into action. I strolled down to the allotment a couple of hours ago bearing cardboard collected from Christmas. I only intended to drop it off but found myself laying it out between the blackcurrants and the raspberries and barrowing wood chips to cover the ground. A neighbour was down there pruning and I scored a nice bunch of hazel bean poles too. Thanks for the motivation.

I'm happy to hear you enjoyed a productive morning floral. It may require Hadacol to start things moving again in Upper New England.

It was a productive afternoon rather than morning. It's 9 am where I am now. Not sure what time it is with you. I had to Google Hadacol. Very interesting. I'm actually doing dry January so I'm feeling even more virtuous going out in the cold.

Hadacol!! snort! It's probably going to take something stronger, although I did get my 2 cords in, and mostly piled. Flora, how far from your home is your allotment?

I'm six hours behind you and Klem is probably seven hours behind you. I think a flight from here is also 6 hours.

Moving and stacking all that wood must have been quite a chore. Good for you.

Our trivia question for the class today is how did ann know cattywampus is a girl?

My allotment is a ten minute walk from my house.

I'm very impressed with the wood stack. No way I could chop that much, even if burning wood was allowed here in the centre of a city.

That lettuce is a lovely arrangement. I blew up and examined your soil.

Now, I'm feeling like a fraud. I didn't chop that wood, flora! I paid $700 for two split cords and had it dropped off in the middle of my driveway, then it took me forever to toss it through the basement window and pile it---mainly 'cause it kept pouring. I should get credit, though for my lovely end stacks. You couldn't tip that stack over with a backhoe. I'm that good. I could hardly think of anything else while I was piling it---what a great job I was doing.

I know Cattywampus is a girl because of her outfit.

I have leggings just like that.

I thought of you yesterday, old dirt, when I ddn't pick up and put in the back of my truck the dead seagull and its entrails in the grocery store parking lot.

annpat - For shame! I don't get much bird or feather material but the feathers are supposed to be good and compost quite fast. I did once throw a wild turkey in my compost pile and all but disappeared within three years. I found the dead, headless turkey in a field. I assume a Great Horned Owl killed it.

I think mine was a homicide.

When I was about five, growing up in a residential neighborhood, my father spread chicken manure and feathers on our lawn. My little classmates held their noses and said PU when they walked past our yard on their way to school. We had the prettiest yard in the neighborhood in a few years. Who's sayihg PU now, buckos?!