Serious about recycling

We try to be good about recycling as much as we can - we have several containers in the garage for paper, plastic glass and so on and most of the 'trash' that I take to the dump n a Saturday morning is actually recycling. The town requires it, we are perhaps more conscientious about it than many, everyone here is supposed to recycle. Recently they started a composting program, which they charge an additional fee for. You can take compostable food scraps to the dump and they use them to make  . . . compost. We haven't signed up for that program because we do our composting at home.

We have a shoebox-sized tupperware-type box on the kitchen counter and all the food scraps get put in there. (Not meat or stuff that is greasy - just things like fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee grounds and tea bags.) It usually takes about a week to fill the box, and then it gets dumped into the compost bin at the far end of the garden, just on the edge of the woods. It's not huge chore - though the children hate to do it because they are scared to go out to the compost bin by themselves in case there are bears around. We haven't seen any bears, or any evidence of them being around in a long time though. It can also be difficult in the winter to open the compost bin as the lid often freezes shut.

More of a problem this coming weekend, when the box will fill up again, was going to be the fact  that there is a layer of snow over three feet deep on the ground. So DH decided to make sure we could get to the compost bin. As usual, once the snow stopped, he had to clear a path from the front to the back of the house so that we can get heating oil delivered. (The oil guy will leave without delivering rather than trek through snow and we definitely don't want to run out!) He decided to keep going with the snow blower and headed all the way out to the compost bin and back around the house!