Compost Giveaway Saturday

From the Press Release from the City:

Gardeners and yard enthusiasts who participate in the City of Wichita Falls Curbside Composting Program can receive a FREE load of compost at the Wichita Falls Organics Facility during the Sanitation Department’s Fall Compost Giveaway. 

The giveaway is Saturday, October 6th from 9:00am to 3:00pm at the Wichita Falls Landfill on Wiley Road. The compost will be loaded for participants with a limit of one pickup truck or 4x8 trailer load per person. Participants must provide a City of Wichita Falls water bill showing the $3.00 recycling program charge. All loads must be covered. This is a state law. Sanitation employees are required to see the participants cover material before loading the compost. No dump trucks, commercial vehicles or over-sized trailers will be loaded. For commercial operation compost purchases please contact the Wichita Falls Sanitation Department at 761-7977.

Directions to the landfill are: take Seymour Highway Southwest toward Seymour to Highway 258, located at the Kamay “Y,” proceed West on Highway 258 toward Kamay approximately one mile to Wiley Road and turn right (North) travel two miles and you will see the entrance to the landfill.

Uses for compost 
Compost contains nutrients, but is not a substitute for fertilizers.  Compost holds nutrients in the soil where all plants can use them, loosens and aerates clay soils, and retains water in sandy soils.   
As a soil amendment 
Mix two to five inches of compost into vegetable and flower gardens each year before planting. 
As a potting mixture 
Add one part compost to two parts commercial potting soil, or make your own mixture by using equal parts of compost and sand or perlite. 
As a mulch 
Spread an inch or two of compost around annual flowers and vegetables, and up to six inches around trees and shrubs. 
As a top dressing 
Mix finely, sifted compost with sand and sprinkle evenly over lawns.

William Bryant Logan to Speak at MSU

William Bryant Logan speaks on "There's No Such Place as Away," on Thursday, October 4 at Midwestern State University, 7 PM at Akin Auditorium. Logan is an arborist and President of the Urban Arborists, Inc. tree company. There is no charge for this event, but if this speaker is like others in this series, get there early if you want a seat.

For Rolling Plains Texas Master Naturalists, this presentation may be counted for advanced training.

Karma

There's a common saying, "What goes around, comes around" that often springs to my mind. We tend to think of the things we do as discrete activities, unconnected to anything else. However, all things are connected, so the things we do invariably impact something else.

We aren't taught to think of the world as a system, which allows poor decisions.

Everything is connected.

This fact was again brought to mind this past week when I was in a group of about 30 people and at the end of the meeting, several people asked for prayers for members of their families and friends. What sticks with me were the children: a 15-year-old with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a 15-day-old with kidney failure, and a 2-year-old with leukemia. These were just in this one group of 30 people. Although it is possible all of these could take place statistically in such a small circle of friends, it seems statistically significant to me.

Is it possible that the choices we have made to poison those things that don't fit our idea of perfection (weeds) or that cause us discomfort (bugs) are coming back to haunt us? A person I know on Facebook posted that she was upset she lost several koi in her pond after she dosed it with algacide. We do these things all the time, without thinking that the poisons we use have to go somewhere. They don't always just break down into harmless substances, and if they do, it isn't always right away. We overdose ourselves with antibiotics. Chemicals that affect our hormones are everywhere.

Can I prove these chemicals have anything to do with the health problems of these children? No, I can't. But someone should be looking into it.

By the way, Living Green in Wichita Falls is now on Facebook, so if you are a Facebooker, consider joining the conversation at https://www.facebook.com/livegreenwf.