Unusual Gift

Last weekend was Nick's birthday.  Making a gift list was easy, as there are so many home-related things that we could use.  I think it says a lot about my husband that he asked his parents for a compost tumbler.

Why, you ask?  We decided a few months back that if we wanted a garden, we wanted to make our own compost.  His mother does it for the family home in Vermont, and in D.C. as well.  We wanted a way to help get our garden growing without having to rely on a bunch of chemical fertilizers.  The solution seemed easy: compost! 

I did some research (there are a lot of tumblers out there) and discovered that by far, the most highly-rated and heavily tested tumblers are Joraform, made by a Swedish company.  According to the Joraform website, the tumblers were tested in "a project comprising 466 households in small houses and blocks of flats and day nurseries. The results have proved most satisfactory as has been shown in the Report No. 4229 by the Swedish Authority for Environment Conservation."  They are very highly rated at websites like eartheasy and Amazon, as well.  The smaller version, the JK125, makes 4.25 cubic feet of compost using two different bins (so you fill the first one and let it do its thing while you start filling the other).  And its insulation means that you can keep making compost even if it's cold and snowy outside.  So we reasoned that if we started this fall or winter, we ought to have several lovely batches come spring, since it only takes 6-8 weeks.  Plus, the powder-coated steel exterior is sturdy and the legs are rust-resistant, and it's supposed to be vermin-proof.  The catch?  Price - all of these terrific features do not come cheap.  So Nick put it on his birthday list, and we made a plan to start saving up for it, so that no matter what, we would eventually have one.

Now we can put our savings towards other items, though, as this evening his parents generously offered to buy one for his birthday (plus a coffee table)!  We are very excited - so excited that we couldn't wait until tomorrow to go find one.  Which as it turns out, was quite fortuitous!  I was planning to buy it on eartheasy, as that was the cheapest site I had found.  Nick asked me to check Amazon, which did have it for $14 less but wanted to charge $45 for shipping, whereas eartheasy has free shipping. Then as I was looking at the Amazon page, I saw advertisements from other companies, such as hayneedle.  Lo and behold, hayneedle does not charge shipping and was running a 10% off weekend sale that ends tonight at midnight.  So we bought it and saved an extra $30!  Now we can afford a pitchfork for the compost.  *grin*

 

 It should be here Thursday!

Nick saw that I was blogging about this and asked how many jokes I was working into the post about turning sh*t into gold for his birthday.  His words, not mine.  For the record.  Although I really wish I'd thought of it first.