Harvesting soil

“Time is fed by soil.”

Jay Griffiths, “Dwelling on Earth”

I was shoveling compost and by coincidence (or not), listening to a very poetic podcast from Emergence Magazine all about soil.

Link to Apple Podcasts, “Dwelling on Earth, Jay Griffiths”

Her article describes the preciousness of the thin layer of topsoil and how great civilizations fail because they gradually strip off the topsoil and become unable to feed their populations. Ironic, because in my own little world, I’m dealing with what seems like huge quantities of soil.

The shallow pit below is where the compost was excavated from. The fence needed to be rebuilt back here. Work in progress. It deteriorated badly from rot and weather and it was falling over.

By next spring, the second pile shown below will be reduced to that black stuff. Hard to believe, but it happens. There’s a year’s worth of food waste in there and chicken bedding removed from the coop. Also garden waste, except for the harder sticks and stalks.

This machine is Sam’s home-built solar-powered “trommel” – a mechanism to sift soil. Sunlight powers the drill, which turns the cylindrical sifter. He made the sifter from bicycle tire rims and fencing. The compost falls through to a rubber sheet below where it can be shoveled up. The large bits – rocks, sticks, undigested things – spew out the sides where they are collected in a cement-mixing trough.

I’ll be watering today and maybe spreading some of those bins of compost on the garden beds. Grateful for sunshine and soil.