Super Healthy Compost

I’ve lived with composting since childhood. It’s hard for me to imagine a life of throwing away perfectly good compostables to be buried forever in and with plastics that will be around until the sun swallows the earth in its death throes.

Having said that, I’m supremely lazy with my compost. I don’t break up the deposits into similarly sized pieces. I dump and dump forever, never turning it. I plan on using the soil, but there’s always something left to break down, and then exclaim at the amazing and unplanned tomatoes and bell peppers that grow OUT of it every year because there are so many tomato and bell pepper innards in the kitchen waste.

In some circles it could be termed more of a forgotten science project.

This spring however, in a fit of gusto, I decided to turn the pile. I know why I should do this more often—aeration, redistribution of microbes, ensuring proper moisture—but most of…

Les Pumpkins

I was recently reminded by one of the rock-star school teachers that I actually have this blog! Life got crazy and I let it slip my mind.

This past Halloween, the kids made it through the whole of the pumpkin carving process on their own. Considering a responsible parent must supply the dullest knives imaginable in order to ensure all fingers remain attached to the body, this is something of a magnificent feat.

Mr. Brewmaster always goes ambitious, and this year produced the Lord Vader-o-lantern. His creations consistently leave our humble o-lanterns in the dust.

Caving in Arkansas

I recently spent the end of my summer vacationing in Arkansas. You heard me right.

Convincing my husband to go along with this was a simple matter of playing the family obligation card—we were participating in a joint vacation with my father from California and visiting his middle sister, possibly my father’s last trip home—and the issue was settled. My husband is nothing if not a Man of Family Values. That’s not to say he fits the political profile of those touting Family Values as their reason for spouting often ridiculous rhetoric. Absolutely not. Which is why this trip was anticipated with some anxiety on his part, being born on foreign soil, disturbed with the antics of the Christian right, and generally unsure if visiting “the South” was beneficial for sane Northerners like ourselves.

Now, the family aspect made the trip worthwhile in itself. My dad grew up in Fort Smith, his father one of nine. Most of the family…

Arthur Ganson, at the MIT Museum

Probably the coolest, and dare I say, most fragile room in the MIT Museum. The Arthur Ganson exhibit is a steam-punk’s dream land, each piece full of moving mechanics.