grub

Reset, he said

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 13:35 on 17 May 2016

"We should reset the compost bins."

Andy commented to me a week or two ago about how the compost bins had stalled, and if I was getting my hands all dirty in the yard planting gardens, maybe I should consider restarting the compost bins. Restarting means taking the top layer of the bins, assembling them into a new bin, rotating all the top dry greens and browns into the new bin, watering appropriately to kickstart the new bins, then sifting through the bottom soil of the existing bins to retrieve the dark, wonderful soil for use on the garden.

Honestly, I'd rather be pulling weeds and planting seeds and watering than sifting compost and turning bins, but I'm game and see the worth of the task, especially with the bald patches in the front yard that could be PRODUCING FOOD.

So, I dug in. I set up the base section of the new bin, and dumped the dry top layers of the old bin into it. I watered, then dumped more green into the new bin from the old bin, cleaning out the old bin until I was down to the delicious, black dirt for the garden. The soil was a little dry, but good.

Next up, sift through the soil to remove large uncomposted organic material (for chipping and/or shredding) and inorganic material (for discarding) from the soil.

Stuart Foreman

Blog Posted by kitt at 22:16 on 23 July 2006

At dinner tonight, Mark started telling one of his college stories (his story to tell, but the summary is: he and his friends killed a rabbit with a BB gun from the dorm balcony, cooked it at a barbeque (tastes like chicken!), was tattled on by the women downstairs, ordered to volunteer at the local Humane Society, tried to do said volunteering at the local Humane Society but were refused because of the reason why they had to volunteer, and ended up volunteering with the campus gardener, who offered them $1 for every rabbit they killed). At one point, Kris leaded over to Megan and asked, "Have you heard this story a million times before?" She laughed, then said yes, but it was okay, because she listened for differences in the stories, to see how they grow over time.

She asked me if I did the same with the stories from Kris that I hear over and over again. I laughed, and said, "No, I just pull out my phone and try to keep up with him while typing it in." I then asked, "Want to hear one?"

I figure Kris isn't going to blog his stories, but some of them are just so so funny. The best part is, of course, the fact that Kris just laughs when he tells the story, so, yes, a lot of it is in the delivery. If he starts typing up his own stories, I'll stop. Until then, I'll keep transcribing.

Megan said, yes, she'd like to hear the story, so, in his words, Kris' story of Stuart Foreman:

Stuart Foreman was the name of our catcher in high school.

We had a rule that a runner heading to home had to slide if there was going to be a play at home. They had no choice, they were rwquired to slide.

my junior year, we were playing our arch rival, James Wood H.S., In one play, the runner starts coming into home. Our catcher caught the ball, and turned to meet the runner. The runner was this 6" 200 (220 in one version of the story) pound guy. Our catcher was like 5'7", 170 (180 in a different telling) pounds, stocky and built like Eric Newman.

So this runner comes in, and our catcher is holding the ball (out in front of himself, both hands around the ball) when the runner keeps charging.

So our catcher goes HUNH! picks up the runner, body slams him to the ground, touches him with the ball, spikes the ball,and walks back to the dugout.

The guy immediately stands up, like he wants to fight. The whole bench is waiting at the end of the dugout, just waiting to rush the field, while the umpire is throwing warnings around.

Immediately warned both dugouts to stay in their dugouts.

Someone asked, What were you doing?

Me? Oh, I was laughing hysterically.

We roll twenty strong

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 21:44 on 23 July 2006

After the second day of GRUB, Beth suggested we all head over to the river for a quick dip. She had hoped we would quick dip yesterday instead of, say, showering at the cabin and using up the water at the cabins. We had a few starts and stops, but ended up at the creek just downstream of the 6th St. Bridge. Not the cleanest of spots, but definitely convenient.

When we arrived, a small group of drunken college boys were flirting with a small group of college girls. And when I say flirting, I mean taunting, catcalling, insulting, and throwing flip flops and dirt clods at them. What passes for flirting these days would most likely have been called assault and battery when I was in college.

Kris and I arrived, and wandered past the mating ritual, down the path to the creek edge. We stood at the stop of the rocks, watching our teammates enter the waterm laughing at the frigid water.

As we stood there, a ball of wet sand came flying at our heads, hitting Kris in the hat, and landing on my shoulders with a wet splat. I turned in anger, as Kris asked, "What the hell?" I knew who threw the ball of sand, having seen the guy throwing earlier, and hollered at the top of my lungs, "You can cut that shit out. Right. Now." They looked a little sheepish, but made no acknowledgement of my yell.

I turned to walk back to the bridge, as Kris did. He continued to the car, as I stopped to tell various teammates who were just arriving what had happened. Dan O cajoled the punks, "Not cool, guys, not cool."

I followed Kris to the car, made sure he was okay, then pulled out my cell phone. I was sufficiently annoyed that a call to the police was in order. 411 worked just fine, and I was connected to the Boulder policy in under a minute. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of walking around as I made the call, and one of the hoodlums saw me talking on the phone while looking at them. They scattered out of the water. Even more tragically, they scattered onto the shore between the cars and the water. Rather than leaving, they hovered, never quite leaving us alone.

After about 10 minutes of trying to relax, I gave up, and walked back to the car. Kris had the trunk open and was arranging things, but I thought he was sleeping in the car and had forgotten to close the trunk. Kris suggested ice cream, so off we went to the Haagen Dazs on Pearl St. My months and months of travelling to Boulder were not for naught!

We arrived back at ye ole watering hole just as everyone was driving away to go to dinner. At dinner, I found out that not only had the hoodlums returned to the water, but had taken up throwing sand clods at our group. One hit Roshan in the head. Another tried "cock fighting puffery" as Mark said, to start a fight. Mark's thought was, "Dude, I'm holding a baby!" Mirabelle would have kicked their collective ass, of course.

Doyle's response was my favorite: "Uh, you know, we roll twenty strong."

Having heard the hoodlums came back to make trouble for my friends because of my actions (ultimately because of their own actions, but pushed along by mine), I was a little sad. I don't want to cause trouble for my friends, especially during these moments of starting to live without fear stopping me. All actions have consequences, I just need to make sure I think of them before I take a stand.

The bummer of the whole situation was, however, realizing I lost $20 when taking out my cell phone to call the police. I had a bill tucked in the phone case. It fell out when I made the call. Sigh.