I blogged in 2012 about making a homemade composter.  But I made one on such a small scale it didn’t make sense.  I am moving up in size ladies and gentlemen!  I am just going to use a garbage pail, one that is small enough to roll around on the ground, but not large enough for it to be bulky and difficult to hide.  I have seen a lot of cool composters people have made and designed it with a door, and on 2 by 4′s so you just have to turn a knob to mix it:

With my vacation coming up I don’t have the time to make this so I made a simpler one.

This is what you will need:

Round Garbage Pail with a lid (one that locks in place if possible).

Food Scraps/Yard Waste (I will get into more detail below on what you need here).

Water

Electric Screwdriver

Soil or finished compost

In order to make good compost you need a good combination of green ingredients, brown ingredients, water and air.  Green ingredients are things like, fresh cut grass, fruit and veggie scraps, egg shells, plant trimmings, coffee grounds and filters and hair (I had 3 cats so I have an abundance of cat fur)  Brown ingredients are dead grass (if you need to rake, this will give you a lot of brown ingredients you can stock pile), saw dust, newspaper, pine needles and straw.   I mixed mine in layers.  I started with brown, mixed in some green, soil, greens and brown.  Add just enough water so it’s as wet as a damp sponge that has been wrung out.

Make sure you drill enough holes in the lid to get good air flow.  This mixture should create heat, but you don’t want it to get too hot.

Pop on the lid and secure and you are done.  I will keep adding food scraps and yard waste until it is full.  In the mean time I will ensure it is properly mixed every few days by rolling it over the ground on it’s side.  This will be easy that the garbage pail is round.   I will update on the progress as it gets closer to complete compost.

Spring cleaning is next week and people are loading up there boulevards with as much crap as they have been collecting up until this time of the year.   I end up seeing a lot of stuff that can be repurposed, if the right person comes along.  Enter me.  I found this!

I am not sure what I will do with it yet, but for now I absolutely love the texture of the wood, and the old look of the brackets.  I am pretty sure I can put it to use somewhere.  I am looking forward to finding some other cool things this week.  I spied a saw horse in a neighbors lawn and I was thinking about carrying it home to see if it could be of use for me, or my dad.  The City of Fargo suddenly changed back the Spring Cleaning week to this week so I won’t have much  time to search for treasures.

We also see a lot of people collect metals of all sorts to trade in for cash.  I honestly love seeing this, because some people make a ton of money from this, and it also prevents a lot of metal from going to the landfill.  An article I had read recently in our local paper stated that our landfill has about 11 more years left before it’s at capacity.  This is happening in a lot of more cities than Fargo.  If we can all be a bit more mindful of what we throw away we can extend the life of the landfill.   The city collects food scraps with it’s yard waste during the warm months, Fargo has electronic recycling day where we can turn in computers and TV’s and also has free curbside recycling.  There should be no reason why we have to put our trash can on the boulevard filled to the brim each week.

1.  Hamsters/Gerbils love them.  See: picture of hamster loving toilet paper rolls.

2.  Make Fire Starters.

3.  DIY compostable peat pots.

4.  Artwork: Creativity 1, Creativity 2, Creativity 3 (and my favorite)

5.  Add to your compost pile.

6.  Make bird house mobile.

7.  Crafts for children.

8.  Chic Christmas Ornaments.

9.  Use as a stencil.

10.  Christmas garland.

What would you keep?  What would you donate?  Would you get bored with only the small amount of things around you?  Is our livelihood, happiness and popularity defined by what we own, or how little we own?

I live with my husband and 3 cats in a home the size of about 1400 square feet, included in that a 2 floor sunroom-loft and living space above the garage.  I believe I can live with half this amount of space.  If I did not have the loft or the garage living space I wouldn’t miss it.   The space we spend the most amount of time is the living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.  These to me are the only required spaces and they do not need to be large.  More space makes us believe that we require more stuff to fill it.

Check out this link.  I could live here.  You can pick where you want to live (it’s on wheels).  We ought to spend more time in the outdoors, rather than indoors anyways.  Do you think you would be happy living in a house this small?

I have also seen several other documentaries that you should check out if you have not already:

1. An Inconvenient Truth-you all probably have heard of this one by Al Gore.  This is the science behind global warming.
2. No Impact Man-a small family spends one year without environmental impact.
3. Supersize Me-made me swear of fast food.
4. Food Inc.-overview on corporate farming.

Also, if you have a chance, you should read the book, Not Buying It by Judith Levine.  A woman goes one year buying only the specific list of agreed upon essentials prior to starting the year.  This means not eating out, going to movies or going shopping.  Wine is not a necessity, neither is travel.  To me, these types of videos and books are inspirational to me.  They make me want to make a change, as I hope they will inspire you to make simple changes.