Ah Crap!

Trailer full of fresh horse manure.

Last weekend we went out for dinner to my wife's brother's hobby farm south of Ottawa.  I took out a few pieces of junk for him and came back with some gold.....black gold.....but not the Texas-T variety.



He has three horses and lots of fresh horse manure.  Thinking ahead to next year, I brought back a trailer load of horse manure right out of the paddock.  I'll let it compost throughout the summer.



Layering old plants and straw and the manure.



I shovelled it into my compost bins and layering it with the brown plant material I had already accumulated.

   



Manure and plant material.



I can report that just five days later the compost piles are cooking away nicely and have reduced in height by at least 1 foot.  I'll try to get a photo of the pile steaming in the morning.

Due to poison ivy poking up here and there around the compost bin, Homer and Cosmo were relegated to staying on the lawn.....at least for a while.  I'll hit these plants, and a ton of others, with Round Up on the weekend.

Poison ivy popping up next the compost bin.....Round Up time!

Homer and Cosmo laying on the grass in the shade of a tree like good boys.....at least for a little while.

Knowing he shouldn't be there, Cosmo quietly lays down in the shade while I work.  There is no poison ivy where he is laying.