Lately, I’ve had the
satisfaction of launching into a new project that I’ve been planning for
quite some time, and dreaming about for longer still.
A long time ago, when
I was young and ambitious, or inexperienced and stupid, depending on how
you choose to interpret the condition of youth, I used to put quite a lot
of effort into making compost.
In fact, I studied
compost quite seriously, I knew all the N-P-K ratings of all manner of
disgusting substances, I studied the Indore Method almost every time I was
indoors, learned how to
encourage earthworm propagation without appearing prurient, and slept with a copy of J.I. Rodale’s
“The Complete Book of Composting” under my pillow. (I might mention
that it is very hard and
lumpy.)
Weekends that could
have been better spent frittered away on shallow, simplistic amusements,
my friends and I would spend developing blisters on our hands from long-handled
shovels, filling our pick-ups with whatever odiferous and repulsive
substance we could finagle for free.
Frankly, it didn’t
take a lot of finagling. We cleaned out barns filled with every
imaginable sort of manure in every imaginable form from baked, caked and
rock-hard to slippery-slimy wet, and all for no other recompense than the
manure itself.
You can imagine what
was going through the farmer’s minds when they were approached by these
young fellows wondering if they could have all their excess manure, but
despite this, most of them were able to contain their derisive smirks at
least until we were out of sight.
So anyway, that’s the
background I bring to my current situation.
Nowadays, having had
some extensive experiences with manual labor such as this, I have mostly
adapted the attitude of trying to avoid it whenever possible.
As a result, I no longer
play the long-handled shovel, and if I did, I am pretty certain that I
would want to receive cash for my efforts.
But I digress… what I
wanted to tell you about was how I’m about to fulfill my daydream, and
that has to do with the fact that I AM a lot lazier than I used to be.
Well, me and most everyone
else my age.
I really hate to
sound like one of these old crocks that can’t remember where he parked his
car, but he can’t forget about how things were decades ago. That
is, I hate to SOUND that way, because that’s exactly how I’m getting to
be.
However, the truth is
that, while I don’t know about you, personally, I’m really starting to
lose faith in my fellow Americans.
I mean, have you
noticed how hard we work these days trying to make things easier?
I refuse to shovel
manure these days, preferring to buy my compost from Wal-Mart.
Now, if you’ve ever
gotten interested in organic gardening, and have come to appreciate the
clean and natural process of making one’s own compost, then you realize,
as I do, that buying compost in a plastic bag from Wal-Mart is like trying
to get fresh milk from a Coke machine. Still, I've been doing it anyway, because I’m
too lazy to shovel.
Then I fret about
getting enough exercise and spend money on medicine to keep my
blood-pressure down, largely because I do more fretting than exercising.
Like a lot of
Americans - maybe most of them - I’ve gotten away from sensible, real
things and converted my life over to… to… commercially-driven fantasy.
Like a lot of
Americans - maybe most of them - I’ve lost my
appreciation for reality.
Okay, NOW I’m ready
to talk about realizing my new project which is my old dream.
