Thermal kill temperatures obtained!

After a huge storm last weekend, tons of leaves came down on the block.  By Monday they had dried out and I was there for the sweeping. I put my shredder to use and converted 3 bags of leaves into one full, dense bag of shredded brown fuel. I added a bunch of leftovers, the compost toilet bucket, weeds I picked from the side yard, and cat food that the picky guy doesn't want to eat anymore. On a side note, my cat seems to only want the cheap processed crap.  I tried feeding him some super good stuff with real meat in it, and he doesn't want it! Anyway, it makes great fuel.  My pile has been at or above 131 F for a few days now.  Yay! According…

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Still Cookin’!

We just had a quick snowstorm and it's going down to 7F tonight... the pile is hanging in there just above 90F.  It's cool how the pile is melting the snow off the top. I feel like I could do a better job insulating the thing... this weekend's deposit will hopefully keep the pile going. Every time I open the tarp I worry that I'm going to lose all the heat, so I work as quickly as possible to keep the momentum going.  I want to take a picture of the steam barreling off of it next time. Would be nice to stay warm in there... well, maybe not!  

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The Weekly Dump

Here's my compost toilet bucket, part 1 of the weekly ritual.  After dumping it into my bin, I then dump in my weekly kitchen scraps.  Since it's below freezing, I have to bring out a bucket of water from inside to rinse out the two containers. After dumping the rinse water into the pile, I cover up the contents with the layer of leaves and finally the tarp.  Maybe I should make a video of the whole process? After filling up my sawdust bucket and an inch of the compost toilet bucket, I'm ready to get back inside.  For less than ten minutes a week, this process couldn't get any easier.

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