New Compost Bins

This weekend was an interesting study in motivation. Or, to be more specific, my motivation vs my laziness. 

I really do want this shed/shop, and I think it will be very good for me. But sometimes I get up in the morning and just don't feel like doing the stuff I should do. As a teenage/early 20's guy, I let this kind of thinking kind of run my life. Luckily I (mostly) grew out of it and became a (mostly) responsible adult.

But Saturday AM I just was not motivated to work in the yard. 

Alas, the old compost bins/area would be in the way of a new shed.

I rationalized my laziness by saying that it was still a bit muddy outside from Friday's drizzle. Also, I had a lot of other things to do and blah blah blah. I told my wife I wanted to move the compost next, and to do that I would need to build a new set of compost bins. Our old ones are 15 years old, and consist of some black plastic-y stuff hidden behind an ancient and decaying Home Depot picket fence. 

You can see how bad it is in the picture below.

So I had a plan to build the new bins. It was all just a matter of doing the work. Well, on Saturday, my laziness won! I did go outside to measure all of our old scrap lumber though. I used that as my "get something done" act of the day. Laziness...

But Saturday evening I felt terrible about wasting the day. I sketched up some plans for what the new bins would look like, then redrew them and reworked them until I only needed tp buy a few (3) boards and the wire. 

I got up in the morning, took a quick walk, and then drove off to the store for materials. Then I lugged out my saw and the rest of my standard "building rough structures in/for the yard" tools and got to work. 

I built three 3' x 3' frames and then held them all together with 4 6'3" stringers. I had some old redwood 2x4s so I used them for the parts that would be touching the ground. The rest were cheap 2x3s that cost <$2 each. The wire was $45... Ouch. At least we have some left over for use on other various chicken-related projects.

My hands are a mess today, lots of sore muscles and cuts/scrapes. Working with that wire is tough, even with gloves.

Next, we'll move the old/in progress compost to the new bins, much out the chicken run, and disassemble/scrap the old compost setup. 

After that, rerouting plumbing (see that water line standing up there in the middle of the picture?) and then building the gravel pad.