Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Friday, 26 December 2008

A Christmas Day at Compost Mansions.




A couple of pictures from our Christmas Day!

We were going to have organic, local, ribs of beef for lunch, BUT Compostgirl lost a tooth and swallowed it on Christmas Eve (!) so wasn't up to chewing much....

so........ we switched to Plan "B" which was local organic chicken and all the trimmings........stuffing, pigs in blankets ( sausages wrapped in streaky bacon), sprouts and chestnuts, roasted spuds and parsnips, broccoli and carrots......all home grown of course!

and then sitting in front of the fire, opening and enjoying presents, and then later watching Dr Who and Wallace and Grommet.


Presents.....I had some splendid chocolate and a wonderful book from Compostman AND he is going to make me a new and splendiferous hen run to go on Cluckingham Palace so I can re jig the various pens and houses to make my darling chickens happier! I also had a DVD of "Tosca" which contains Bryn Terfel as "Scarpia" which I can watch and drool over ....


Compostgirl had things she seems very pleased with ( various books, games and and a "Dr Who" sonic screwdriver...which is driving US mad but SHE seems to love it...as she is a total "Dr Who" fan....)

Compostman had some Cd's he wanted, some edible stuff he likes and a DVD he wanted as well as a coat from me he said was what he would like.

so...modest but wanted gifts here all round, and everybody is happy!


Apart from tending to the animals in the morning and evening we did NOTHING outside except go for a walk and get some wood in for the wood burner..we did NO WORK AT ALL...! so we had a DAY OFF! This makes me realise how rare it is for us to actually have a complete day off!

It was lovely.....we drank TOO much stuff, ate TOO much stuff and watched TV when WE wanted to watch it and then in between times switched it off and played games or listened to music or just chatted or stroked the cats and chatted and generally had a lovely time....



Lovely :-)

I hope you ALL had an equally lovely time!

7 comments:

  1. Sounds like a fabulous Christmas time at Compost Mansions! Your room looks so cosy with the wood burner. Actually, it's not til you stop for a whole day, that you realise how much you needed it!
    Willow xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Where is your chimney? I would love to have a wood burning stove but I am concerned about the chimney:)

    Renee

    gardendesk.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello Renee! Our chimney is behind the woodburner, there is a horizontal flue which goes out the back of the burner and then into the chimney stack.

    Willow, it WAS a nice day, and it makes me realise how much we ( all, probably!) rush around , normally...

    we all need to take a bit more time to enjoy life, I think ;-))

    ReplyDelete
  4. A belated Merry Christmas to you CW. Sounds like you had a lovely relaxed christmas and a well-earned rest!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tell Compostgirl that the Tooth Fairy does not accept swallowed teeth. Eww!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Frank, she DOES!

    It wasn't CG's fault, so the TF said she would accept it just this once......

    but she didn't need to see the tooth....(!)

    Compostgirl wrote her a little note explaining why there was no tooth available.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hello CW
    Happy New year to you.
    So far nobody has been able to answer my query about compost, so I wonder if you can help me, please?

    I keep three compost bins going in cycle. I love using 'our own' compost and can always recognise it as it has broken up egg shells in it, unlike the stuff from the garden centre

    Q: How does compost know when to stop breaking itself down, and start to feed plants instead? ie why does it not digest the seedlings entrusted to it?

    ReplyDelete

Hello! Thank you for reading my blog and for commenting. I try to reply as quickly as I can and I really appreciate your interest in my life and doings here in The Compost Bin.

UA-40361266-1