Complicating the Compost
The other day a friend and I were building a composting barrel. We’d finished the stand/frame, drilled the hole for the pole and cut out the door and secured it with hinges and a latch. We installed the flanges on the inside to help mix the contents and drilled several small holes to help with the air flow…after all, it takes air to make dirt, ya know! When it was all said and done, we were quite happy with our accomplishment, except for one thing. Where we chose to put the door did not seem to be the place where the barrel liked to naturally rest. It would always rotate and the door would be at the bottom, facing the ground. Well, as you can imagine, that was not conducive to adding contents to the barrel. So, after some conversation, we decided it would be prudent to find a way to stop the barrel from spinning when we did not want it to spin. We looked around and came up with a myriad of possible solutions, involving everything from hangers and chains to hooks and string. As we...