Dachshund’s Farmfeatured

(Note: there are Amazon affiliate links to the products we used in today’s story.  I receive a small commission on purchases made from those links.  These products were purchased by me, and not provided by any company.)

As the summer days stretched long into the evening and the heat/humidity kept me restricted to the house we needed a new series to watch on streaming.  I suggested Clarkson’s Farm and it was a hit for everyone in the family (except Hoku, who didn’t care and would sleep through anything).

It inspired Gustav, Johann Sebastian and I to get involved in urban gardening.  Johann already had several books on the subject and he had actually been campaigning for a composter for quite some time.  “Happy soil is groovy soil, and groovy soil grows happy vegetables.  Happy vegetables”–he licked his lips–“make groovy snacks for happy dachshunds.”

I had been looking into ways that we as a household could cut back on waste, and our family produced a lot of food scraps that would be excellent for composts.  I looked at the Gardener’s Supply website and gasped at the costs involved.  My father’s parents owned a farm when I was growing up and their “compost pile” was a mound next to the trash pit that occasionally got turned with a pitchfork.  These were cedar built boxes or rotating bins with a high price tag to match, but I eventually found one within our budget and, even better, Canadian made.  The dachshunds and I decided on a rotating bin so that it would be easier for us to turn, especially in the heat of summer.

Gustav examined the text (“How to Compost for Fun and Profit”).  “It says here that if we do it properly, we will have fresh compost every two weeks.”  He looked up hopefully.  “Maybe that means we’ll have tomatoes the size of softballs!”

The three of us went to Jeremy with our action plan.  He had also enjoyed Clarkson’s Farm and was more receptive to our ideas than he had been in the past–but he did veto our ideas to turn the entire backyard into an urban farm.  His lawn was his vanity, his pride and joy, and he wasn’t about to let us tear up the entire turf to put in more raised garden boxes.  He had already kept a firm hand limiting what we already had to the raised box and assorted containers that were already there when he bought the house.

I also had visions in my head of becoming a cottage industry and going beyond plant produce.  Unfortunately all of these ideas were vetoed by Jeremy immediately:

• A beehive (“Bees!!!!  What are you thinking?  I will buy you all the stupidly overpriced, organic, hipster, free range, local honey you want as long as it means I won’t get stung a million times when I try to drink a beer on my own back porch”)
• A sheep (“What!  A sheep??!?  You can’t have a sheep in a residential area!  It’s against zoning laws.  Besides, I already pick up a ridiculous amount of turds in that lawn as it is now.  I knew when you ordered that filthy fleece you’d eventually escalate to your own livestock”)
• An alpaca (see above)
• Chickens (He rolled his eyes heavily at this one.  “Chickens.  What a fantastic idea.  Chickens, with your treacherous dachshunds and my Bowie, who lose their minds whenever they see birds land in this yard.  That would not end well” and on second thought I had to agree.)

However, after he had been confronted with the possibility of bees, sheep, alpacas and chickens in his backyard a rotating composter didn’t sound so bad by comparison and he approved our final choice.  Gustav appointed himself to be on the lookout for the parcel.

The IM400 Dual Chamber Tumbling Composter arrived a day ahead of schedule and soon all of the pieces were out of the box and scattered on the living room floor.  Jeremy dropped the metal frame, it hit the floor with a terrible crash and Bowie shrieked, tore like lightning for our bedroom, dived under the bed and didn’t emerge for the rest of the afternoon.  Gustav supervised Jeremy in assembling the composter, and I held parts during assembly.  Once we were putting the final panels of the bin into place Jeremy said, “You know what this really is?  A dachshund spinner.  Every time a dachshund pees where they aren’t supposed to, they’re going to be spun in this thing.”

Gustav and Johann Sebastian gasped and they slunk away from the composter and wrapped themselves around each of my legs.  “Like the iron box in The Bridge Over the River Kwai?”  Johann squeaked.  “That one didn’t spin,” whispered Gustav.  Jeremy thought his joke was very clever until he saw me glaring at him.  “That’s not funny,” I hissed at him between clenched teeth.  He hurriedly reached to assemble the next panel and no more was said about the “dachshund spinner”.

Soon the composter was placed against the fence and everyone did their bit to collect the first layers.  Gustav tore up the corrugated cardboard into smaller pieces, Jeremy ran the lawnmower to collect grass clippings and Johann Sebastian collected the kitchen food scraps in a bag.  “Here are the scraps from the past few days, except for the strawberry tops–I ate those,” he said as he passed it up to me.  I put everything in the bin in their proper composting order.

We all stood back to admire once everything was done and Gustav asked, “When will it be ready?  Later tonight?  When do we get to turn it?”

I told him it would be awhile, but for the rest of the day and into the evening I saw Johann Sebastian scurrying over to the bin and sliding the door open to peep at the contents.  Gustav stood next to him, anxiously asking for the latest report.  “What does it look like?  Does it look like dirt yet?”

Johann slid the door back.  “Well, the corn husks are wilted, and there are some flies in there.  Not much change from earlier in the day.”

They both stood there, looking up at the bin with an expectant air.  “I guess we better check in with the rest of the plants,” said Johann eventually. “Maybe that will pass the time.”

They went from the tomatoes to the squash, to the seedless watermelon and then the pickling cucumbers, sniffing at each blossom, turning the leaves under to check for pests, and tapping the ground with their paws to see if it needed watering.  “The squash is a bit dry.  I’ll fix it,” said Gustav as he hiked his leg and peed on it.

This took all of half an hour and soon they were in front of the composter again.  Johann checked it.  “Still no change,” he reported.  Gustav had rolled over on his back and was watching a butterfly weave around above him.  “I didn’t think it would take this long,” he confessed.  “If you buy one that is more expensive, does it go faster?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Johann murmured as he circled the bin.  “I think it will be fine though.  I’m sure there is a Buddhist koan about this, about how the process taking so long is the path to enlightenment.”

Gustav rolled over onto his belly and stood up.  “I don’t want to be enlightened.  I want to eat delicious vegetables that we grew ourselves.”  He shook himself.  “At least, with chickens, we could chase them when we are bored and waiting for eggs.”

Johann ignored this and took another look inside the bin.  “Maybe there just isn’t enough stuff in it.”

“So what do we do about that?”

I was sitting in our living room reading a new book-–The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook–-when the dachshunds came scurrying in and asking for snacks.  The house rule is that chews/treats are given sparingly but they can have however many vegetables they want.  I was focused on the text–my chosen sister is a knitter and while I can’t actually knit very well at all, I’m interested in making the actual fibers and we’ve discussed maybe opening our own yarn shop one day–so I wasn’t really tuned in to dachshund treachery and it was awhile before I got the funny feeling that they were up to something–it was far too quiet in the house–and I went looking for them.

I found them on their backs in the kitchen, holding their stomachs and groaning.  Carrot stems, broccoli stalks, beet leaves, celery ends, and half of a cucumber with teeth marks on it lay scattered about them.

“What in the world!” I gasped.  I had done a grocery run just the day before and I had bought enough produce that should have lasted for the next two weeks or so.  They’d eaten all of it.

Johann Sebastian opened one eye to look at me.  “We were making more vegetable scraps for the composter, so that we will have more rich compost faster, and we can grow more vegetables,” he confessed miserably.

“Don’t talk to me about vegetables!”  Gustav moaned.  “I never want to see another carrot again!”