Compost Happens...Change Does Too

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Read the first two installments here: Compost Happens...I Hope and Compost Happens...Of Course!

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In 2010, having lived and worked in five national parks from sea to shining sea, I returned to Mammoth Cave at long last. The guide force was still the same family I knew and loved – equal parts endearing and exasperating. But left to their own devices for five years without my outbursts, they'd changed all by themselves. 

Compost Happens...Of Course!

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Catch the beginning here: Compost Happens...I Hope

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So I added too much newspaper, water, and yeast, too many nuked-and-frozen banana peels, and too little soil. And in less than a week's time, I'd become the world's most successful indoor farmer. Of gnats, that is. I fished out and trashed the banana peels, tried to rearrange and dry out the bins a bit, and made approximately five thousand fruit-fly traps. At two weeks, the feeding frenzy finally commenced! Tragically, not of the worms, but on the worms. My poor little wriggly babies. The damn fruit flies had laid eggs in my compost bin and were literally eating my invertebrate farm animals alive! Noooooooooo!!! It was the most disgusting thing ever.

Compost Happens...I Hope

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My second summer working and living at Mammoth Cave National Park, I decided it was time to walk the talk. If I was going to encourage visitors to be stewards of the Earth, it was time for me to start being a better one myself. Recycling and using less A/C was not enough. I was going to start composting.

My co-workers' number one suggestion was: “Throw it out in the woods. The varmints 'll compost it fer ya.”