Love My Mayor

Right up on top of the list of Things I Get To Do Today is get a new compost bucket.  Compost buckets don’t wear out.  So here’s the scoop.

Bought a “Buddy” bucket 25 years ago (its name was on the label).  It’s still in excellent condition.  Stopped using it awhile back since the plastic bags from the grocery produce department that I wanted to recycle as liners didn’t fit.  Just thought the liners were a good idea.  Got chickens.  Ended up using the better fitting bucket for jobs at the hen house.  Found the old bucket and said to myself that liners were wasteful; it could be rinsed out after emptying each time.  No need to be lazy here. 

All is well.  Used the buddy bucket and rinsed it, etc. for several months.  Prepared to fix dinner one night and hauled the bucket from its place under the sink onto the counter where the vegetable trimmings could drop in easily and efficiently.  FLASH THOUGHT!  Did I set this bucket down in the hen pen when I was emptying it into the compost bin last time?  Little pictures in my mind: bottom of the bucket on ground in hen pen—bottom of the bucket on my kitchen counter.  Big OOPS! 

The important function of the bucket liner became clear.  Liner goes to the hen pen and into the recycling.  Bucket stays in the kitchen.

Yesterday’s mail brought us “The Curbsider—Special Edition” with info about our city’s new plan to compost food scraps with our yard debris.  Going to let us give them up for collection every week now, they are!  Let it be hereby known I jealously guard my food scraps.  They go back into the ground and get to try again as new vegetables.  Not giving one onion skin or apple peel to my city, the mayor, the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability or the director of that bureau!

But when I open the flyer, I see illustrated the handsome tan and brown compost bucket that will be mine October 31, gift of the mayor, the director, the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and my fair city.  How did they know? How much did they have to pay to arrange a new compost bucket for just me?  Thank you, thank you, thank you!