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Update: Robot composter

A while back I reported on buying a NatureMill, a computerized indoor composter. We've had it about three months, and here's our report:

1. Follow instructions! Our initial batches were of low quality because we didn't add enough of what the NatureMill folks call white compost - paper, sawdust - things other than produce. Too much produce in a batch yields compost soup. John to the rescue: we add sawdust to each batch. Works like a charm.
2. Don't follow instructions! The NatureMill documentation is awful. Parts say to fill the hopper full and others say don't overfill. What's the truth: don't fill it full at all. We had a batch that wouldn't empty completely because the hopper was too full. Mixing in sawdust helps tremendously.
3. You can get excellent compost out of the thing. In less than a week! This is the important part. After debugging our problems we've gotten the thing to work extremely well. Living in a cold climate in winter is a problem for outdoor composting. Now we can process our kitchen scraps year-round, and dump the compost into our outdoor bins for later use. Because the NatureMill is so efficient at reducing bulk our outdoor compost bins are filled a fraction of their capacity.

On balance - we love it!

Update: Ford Escape Hybrid

I've put about 3000 miles on my Escape Hybrid. Here's an update on my experiences so far:

1. I love it! It's delightfully fun to drive.
2. Around town I  get around 32 mpg. That's more than double my old Explorer's fuel economy.
3. On the highway the numbers aren't so good. Iowa has a 70 mph speed limit, and my fuel economy is in the mid 20's. Driving around 60 mph boosts economy substantially.
4. Ambient temperature plays a big role. When it's cold (say, below freezing) the batteries don't work as well. The gas engine takes longer to warm up and I suspect the battery recharging isn't as efficient. Fuel economy when it's cold may suffer 20%. When it's below zero, fuel economy is even worse (but the vehicle performs splendidly even at -20F).

I'll report back in another 3000 miles...

An Iowa springtime

We survived the drenching we got on Thursday night - 2.75" of rain in a hour. My father calls those storms cob-rollers: they're so strong they'll shear corn right off the plant! Unfortunately lots of folks in Iowa City (about 20 miles south of us) and surrounding towns weren't so lucky: several tornadoes killed one woman and caused lots of damage. We didn't even have hail...

Anyway we headed out yesterday morning on our walk past Indian Creek - see left for what an Iowa spring looks like. Stuff's been coming up like crazy!

A 'positive, progressive' evening

Years ago John got a most wonderful documentary, In Advance of the Landing. The documentary follows a book of the same name by Douglas Curran. They're both delightful. They look at folk concepts of outer space and experiences with extraterrestrials. John and I have watched the film many times with increasing enjoyment. John has a special interest in such stuff. Another book he recommends is Apocalypse Pretty Soon.

One of the groups profiled by In Advance of the Landing is the Unarius Academy of Science. The group started out in a rather sleepy way after being founded in the mid-1950s by Ernest and Ruth E. Norman. After Ernest passed on, Ruth transformed herself and the group and produced a prodigious number of books and video presentations - including two feature-length films. (Sort of.) In Advance of the Landing profiles Ruth Norman, who 'came out' as Uriel. She plays a very prominant role in all the Unarius productions - and she's a special effect that not even Steven Spielberg can reproduce! Miles of organza and purple gauze: her costumes are a drag queen's dream! The short of it is the Unarius folks believe in reincarnation and that we have lived lives before, not only here, but also on sister planets. We are part of a fabulous interplanetary brotherhood of worlds. The teachings include past-life regressions and psychodramas.

John and I splurged on one of the Unarius films several years ago. I had a hankering for more Uriel and I plunked down $40 for four DVDs, including A Round Table with Uriel. We had a Unarius fest last week.

Now I've been poking fun at these good folks perhaps a bit too hard. I do love Uriel: she's an absolute trip and well worth a visit to their website to see. The interplanetary stuff - especially the part where 32 spaceships will form a magnetically linked tower on Earth where we'll all learn space stuff - well, there it is - or isn't: she prophesised before she passed on that the ships would turn up in 2001 and she'd come back and be in command of the top-most ship. So far, no good. But the basic notion is a good deal more solid: take personal responsibility for yourself; make amends for your past actions; live in a positive way. One of Uriel's favorite phrases is 'positive, progressive'. Many of the religions that play such a decisive role in today's events could take a lesson from Uriel: drop the blame game and clean up after yourself!

Playing hooky

I've never been away from my blog as long as this. I don't even have a good reason for it other than I was in California on business for a week and had absolutely no time at all to write. I've been doing project plans and getting old projects out the door. And when I'm away from home my time never seems to be my own.

Enough excuses. My great good fortune is to be home for this week and the next few. Being home has been almost transcendent. Best of all (other than being with John) is our sudden spring. I've been in shorts the last two days (and still am at 10PM!).

Here is a Louisiana Iris. John littered the ground with hundreds of bulbs, rhizomes, tubers, and all such. I planted maybe 150 bulbs myself last fall. Stuff is up everywhere! I'm organizing a photo album of spring around here that I'll post this weekend.

I'm also hard at work on some new video. The new version of iLife on my MacBook has much better video editing than anything I've had before. I'm doing an Easter surprise that I'll post this weekend along with some more serious cooking that I've been doing.