Every morning there are little things I do around the house and garden and kind of pretend to myself that I’m like my character in Stardew Valley tending my farm.
I have this new gadget that’s kind of exciting but embarrassing, an electric composter, plugged in under the stairs outside. It’s kind of like an extra large bread machine: you open it up and dump in some food scraps, it gently maintains a particular temperature, and some paddles slowly stir the compost over the day. So far so good, it’s been going for a week, it doesn’t smell bad, and it also hasn’t filled up, so the decomposers are doing their work!
I guess the compost is kind of like my slime ranch – a microbe and fungus ranch! Dirt ranch? I like to imagine that I’m slowly creating a healthy biosphere for birds and bugs by improving the soil of our postage stamp of land in the city.
On the back porch, I check the tiny glass bird feeder for the finches and set out some peanuts on the railing for our neighborhood blue jay. I want the crows to discover us so that I can tame them and put out crow puzzles, but for whatever reason, the crows stay in the front yard across the street on the roof. Blue jay, finch, and dark eyed junco ranching is a success though.
Watering some plants, always a goal but I don’t always want to pull out the giant, heavy hose and do the entire battery of containers, so I keep a couple of watering cans filled up for the least drought-tolerant plants.
That’s it, I just thought I’d talk about how nice it is to trot around with peanuts, garbage, and a watering can, tending my “farm”!