The Red Bucket

How I rediscovered my love of composting

This morning, I brought out the red compost bucket. For the past week, I found myself passively searching for compost systems. We’ve always been the bucket on the counter type of people, and was amazed (and slightly puzzled, possibly annoyed?) by all the new composting technology. Did you know they have something called a Lomi machine that sits on your countertop, and automates the composting process while you sleep? There’s a Mother’s Day sale for only $519, lol. Or, that they now sell a giant rotating composter (the same mechanics as the rotisserie ovens for the $5 chickens at Costco), with a giant drum and handle — so that you can control the turn over of your yard compost? We always just used a shovel and poked around at it.

Left: the Lomi compost bucket. Right: The rotating compost bin.

When we lived in New Paltz, we had this red bucket. It sat on our kitchen table and we threw everything into it. Egg shells, banana peels, potato bits, leftovers. The bucket was a horse feed bucket from the Tractor Supply Store. We bought a large brown compost bin from The Home Depot and placed it in our yard. One week, after staying a few days in New York City, we came home and the compost bin was ripped in half. Next to it was a pile of bear poo. Ohhh, we realized. We had honey wheat bread that was starting to go bad. It was our fault, really. How could we expect a bear to resist that?

Left: the compost, after the bear. Right: evidence of the bear. LOL.