Farm kid wannabes

Someone told my Uncle Tandy that drinking goat's milk would help with his gastrointestinal issues, so he up and builds a goat pen and a goat house and a milking bench and he gets himself a billy and a couple or three nannies. Now, I suspect he also thought he might make a buck or two moonlighting in the goat business, because (1) does one guy really need three goats to keep him in milk? and (2) my uncle was--how shall I say?--frugal. It once took him and John David three weekends to take down an old shed because every scrap of reusable lumber and every single nail, no matter how bent--had to be saved and neatly laid by. Lord, I've no idea how long it took John David and my Aunt Emma to pound out straight some six coffee cans of crooked nails!

The Jackson place there at Kadane Corner wasn't a farm, but it was the closest this seven-year-old city kid was likely to get. Between running leases in the bed of my uncle's pickup truck, helping Aunt Emma with her kitchen garden, tending to chinchillas (another moneymaker that didn't make) and trying to ride Old Billy on a dare, it was as close as I needed to be at the time.

Every kid deserves at least an occasional taste of country life. I know I wouldn't take for the summer weekends I spent with my aunts, uncles and cousins at Kadane Corner and out near Rule, Texas. IF you are a parent or know of a parent looking for a place where a kid can get back to some of the basics of life, check out Restless Prairie Farm's Farm Kid Apprentice Day Camp.

You ain't lived until you've come home smelling like a goat!

Wednesday and my yard waste roll off is full. River City charges me $36 annually to pick up my organic debris and truck it off to be turned into compost. Save any week that has a holiday in it, that is. Like this week.

Collecting from the green bins gets dumped from the schedule on holiday weeks.

Once upon a time green bins were collected at no cost to residents. The combined refuse went to the big composting facility west of town, and a couple of times each year residents could drive out and cart off all the free compost they could haul away. More often than not, demand far exceeded supply. If you didn't go early, you stood a good chance of sitting in line in your pickup truck all Saturday morning for nada, zip, nothing.

Now the green bin is $3 each month on your water bill, and you still can go get the compost for free with a recent water bill stub. Quite a few River City residents turned in their bins when the city went to charging to play in the program.

Overall, I think the program merits participation. This part of the city's sanitation operation diverts a significant stream of refuse away from the landfill, recycling it into compost for use in city parks as well as by participating residents. But is it fair for the city to charge me to provide the raw materials to make its compost, particularly when I do not have a pickup truck to collect my "share" of the product?