Physical labour making its mark

It's not just the cuts that appear on my hands from nowhere. Or the giant slice in my knuckle from bamboo cutting in the rain during class.

Bamboo construction is rad, by the way. This exciting ravine in my knuckle took me out of commission before we polished things off, but I am highly anticipating the arch we are building. And the best part is that I think, given a pile of bamboo, a pruning saw, a short machete-type knife and a rubber mallet, I might just be able to recreate one on my own.

But, dude. I was wearing a tank top as I brushed my teeth in front of the bathroom mirror the other day, and it would appear that all this mattock swinging and terrace shoveling is showing itself as upper body strength. I can almost see muscles in my arms and shoulders, which is cool, but doesn't feel very womanly.

Tips for constructing with bamboo
- Make your cuts near a node for added strength when possible.
- Fill nodes at joints with concrete for added strength.
- Twist the bamboo towards you as you saw through it. Pruning handsaws cut on the pull (not the push), so keeping the bottom edge of the blade near the handle in a constant position (where the tip moves through new wood) helps make smooth cuts without a little lip at the end.
- When cutting lengthwise, you don't actually need a sharp knife. Any thin, longish knife and a rubber mallet for hammering it past nodes will do since the crack always originates a few inches below your blade. (Though a sharp knife is handy for trimming edges down to size after the initial long cuts have been made).
- When weaving bamboo, make strips as uniform in size and as flat as possible. 3/4" is a good width, 1/4" is a good thickness.
- When anchoring constructions with steel rods (or whatever else), lift bamboo off the ground with a rock so that soil microorganism don't rot it out.

Composting 101: Dealing with flies

My worm bin has always been on the wet side, with most of the finished compost dripping through the wide grating at the bottom of my Wriggly Wranch, which hasn't really bothered me because there are enough worms swimming around in the lower level to suggest that it hasn't become too anaerobic (lacking the oxygen worms and other organisms need to do their decomposing), but it's also been more fly-prone than usual lately, which needless to say isn't my favorite thing about composting.

With all that life going on, it was nice that we had a little composting refresher in my Permaculture class the other day to help sort things out. Here are some helpful tidbits of info, should you find yourself with a worm bin:

1. The kind of little flies or other insects that tend to come with worm composting generally have about a 14 day life cycle. So, if you ever have a serious problem, make sure to stop adding food to your bin for at least 14 days to wait out the current cycle.

2. Flies need a moist environment to lay their eggs and produce the next generation of their kind, so you want to keep your bin as dry as possible. Wetness in and of itself isn't a problem, but it provides a happy environment for fly larvae and makes your finished compost a little messier than you might like, whereas drier compost would be less likely to drip through the grate at the bottom of your bin. Other advantages of relatively dry compost are that the anaerobic liquid also being produced during the decomposition process can leak to the bottom (which is what that spout is there to release, if you have one) without contaminating your compost and that harvesting might not be quite as messy.

Some simple ways to dissuade flies from colonizing your bin include:

Adding more newspaper to the top.
Leave as much as 6" of newspaper strips over your foodscraps. For more serious fly problems, you can also lay a few sheets of whole newspaper over the top to create more of a barrier. More newspaper can also help with odor problems.

Use drier foodscraps.
Worms (and the other decomposers) love to eat the vegetables left over from making vegetable stock, but these are really wet. To dry out stock left overs, I've started leaving them out on the stove once I've poured off the stock I'll be using and allowing them to air dry or turning the heat back on under my pot to further dry the scraps out.

Always add food scraps UNDERNEATH newspaper.
The harder it is to get to food scraps, the less likely flies will discover and gorge themselves on them. Tossing your food scraps on top makes it easy for pests to find them and harder for your worms. Scraps on top will take longer to decompose, which can lead to rotting, which means bad smells and probably more flies.