Chicken wire compost bin set up with minimal injury!

Because the worms just can't keep up, I have set up a normal compost bin, too. I was hoping to buy a nice rotating one. Then I checked out prices. Wow! It just seems nutty to spend >$100 on a composting bin. That's hardly crunchy, right? And the only compost bin Home Depot had in stock was a $300 cedar number. Ugh!

However, Home Depot did have chicken wire -- and lots of it. They must have had a dozen different varieties! I scratched myself pretty badly checking them out. I guess I should have remembered that chicken wire is in essence mildly barbed wire. In any case, I found what I was looking for in a 3' by 10' affair. It came tied up in wire that I reused as wire ties.

So I have finished building my own bin using these materials. I found about six sets of directions online, all of them remarkably similar. Here is an example: http://www.urbanfoodgarden.org/main/composting/composting---wire-compost-bins.htm.

And here is a picture of the finished product! I am quite pleased with it. I put some dirt at the bottom (including a nice fat earthworm), some food scraps, and some of the grass that has overgrown my front beds.

The ongoing mystery of local milk

I've been making yogurt with a Donvier yogurt maker for about six months. Yes, I learned about this yogurt maker from "French Women Don't Get Fat." I am unashamed -- it is the first "diet book" I have ever read, and I consider it far better than its category. In any case I love the yogurt maker. The yogurt is so much tastier than anything I can buy at the store. Sometimes I strain it to make Greek yogurt and eat it with honey. Lately I leave it unstrained and eat it with just a smidge of preserves on top.

I've used the machine (if it can be called that: It does nothing but keep the yogurt at the right temperature for a set period of time) dozens and dozens of times. I have goofed up a few times. Once I forgot to press start. Once I forgot to add the yogurt starter. And once I forgot to put it into the fridge when it was finished (but my neighbor came to the rescue and did it for me).

In two instances I have been unable to identify any goof-up on my part but I have nonetheless gotten bad product. In both instances I have used 100% local milk from glass bottles rather than the usual Garrelick farm milk. See the results from today's batch.



What a mess! The yogurt separated and it never got properly thick in the first place. In this case I had used milk from McNamara dairy in Plainsfield, NH. I get it at the Upper Valley Food Coop. My neighbor used to live near the dairy and she says that it is a wonderful facility, so I love buying this milk. It's also very tasty -- though apparently not in yogurt. I have also used milk from Crescent Ridge Dairy, with similar results.



What is it about local milk that prevents my yogurt from turning out right? You would think it would turn out better. Kerry Bodine, who writes about local food in her Wicked Flavory blog, had the same response. I can't believe they are ultrapasteurizing their milk... I need to get to the bottom of this. Any suggestions welcome!

The results

The tangible ingredients
Four chairs: $10, $10, $8, and $5.
Four sheets of sandpaper and a sanding block: $7
One can of primer: Free (was in the basement when I purchased the house)
Four quarts of Behr paint: ~$11 each

The intangible ingredients
15 mins to sand each chair (1h total)
30 mins to prime each chair (2h total)
1.5h to paint each chair 2-3 coats (4.5h)
Approx 1.5h driving around looking for and picking up supplies

Total cost: $87 and 9h of time

The results: