Project 05/24/09

Today we celebrated the 5th birthday of my granddaughter Carolee, of the Graf Kids. It was a small gathering of friends but the good adults, children, and weather made it great little party. For the second day in a row I forgot to bring my good digital camera along so had to rely on my not-so-good cell phone camera. My daughter in law said she would send me some pictures of my granddaughter that are sure to be better than the ones I took.

One of my grandsons and I went to check on the project of changing cow dung to worm castings. All looked well, the compost was moist and the worms were wiggling. We added some more worms and a few wood chips to the two rows. I appointed the one grandson who was with me the “General Manager” of this project with the duties to consistently check the rows so they do not overheat, and water them as needed. My daughter in law told me she does most of the watering but this grandson shows the most interest, and with his new title may show more care for the project.

My oldest grandson, when told about this, wanted a title also. He is 12 and is good at math. I told him that if this project turned into a little business of selling this Cadillac of organic fertilizers, he could be President of the business. Carolee did not know or care about all this title-giving. However, she immensely enjoyed her birthday presents. Unlike titles they are real meaningful to her.

My partner, the dairy farmer across the road, was not there due to his son’s own family birthday party today. However, my grandson said he was also considering purchasing equipment to turn cow dung into energy. This is a method that has been around for a while but technology is just becoming affordable and feasible. I need to send him the pictures form the Pilgrimage of Peace of a very simple and efficient operation of generating electricity I witnessed at the “Cow Farm” in India.

Taking this picture with my cell phone of the two rows of cow dung we are attempting, with worm power, to turn into “black gold” or castings reminds me that I need to work the web page cow dung to castings and energy.

Giving out titles might help to motivate my grandsons, but, like my five year old granddaughter, we need something more concrete to be motivated. This old but true method of changing cow dung (which there is plenty of) into valuable organic fertilizer may be the “something more concrete” to motivate us. Popularizing this method would be a good present for farmers and urban gardeners.

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