Soil and Dirt

I think a lot about mothers, about my mother's mother's mother's mother, following the chain as far back as possible, how many mothers have I had? Where did they come from? What happened to them? What did they suffer and enjoy? I haven't even considered all the fathers yet.

I think a lot about soil, too, and earth. Today I cracked open William Bryant Logan's Dirt randomly and was harpooned by this passage on page 55:

Whitman wondered why diseased corpses, when buried in the ground, did not poison the earth. "Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?" Is not every continent worked over with sour dead?" he wrote. Yet he concluded in awe at the Earth: "It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor."

Oh! Brooklyn in the house! Logan and Whitman both found their way here. Logan runs Brooklyn based Urban Arborists and also teaches at the NY Botanical Garden. And I know you know all about Whitman so I won't waste your time.

Now, not a drop of poison on my mothers, please. I imagine when and if our dealings with the Earth are immaculate, humanity will have overcome habitual abuse, neglect and exploitation of our kind as well. Uh, maybe. And hopefully soon I'll offer you a post that doesn't reek of the charnel grounds quite as much.

Compost Salad

The smaller the bits, the faster it decays, so we've begun hand chopping the trimmings. It's an odd feeling, but not that different from crushing the carboard boxes or tin cans for recycling the way my grandfather used to with his foot. He was rather impeccable, but I did feel a little bad for their kitchen floor when I saw him flattening the metal against it.

I've solved the aeration problem for now by rolling the composting can. Now the challenge is to get more of the dry brown stuff in there. I understand I can use newspaper but I don't want to use newspaper. I'm developing an obsession with the pine needles my daughter tells me lie a foot thick in her friend's Park Slope backyard.

Designer dirt... I'd better nip this one in the bud.