Not zinc....no way no how, too much detail, and the condition is too good. Zinc corrodes and bends and breaks....but I do see a broken finger. have you riled out bronze? What does the metal where that finger was broken look like? I know a few dealers who, when they don't know what they have, put it up for sale with a huge price, hoping to learn something before they sell it for a song. BTW...I have a house full of things I have bought for a song! Hope you find out more.

I'd like to think so but I got a frosty reception when I mentioned the bugs and smell and Council officers have gone through it with them. The thing boils down to the siting. The bins are along the fence line directly behind our barbecue, with only about 20 centimetres between, and beneath our kitchen window. No matter what, open compost piles/bins like those used will inevitably attract insects, and in the summer, flies and we have experienced both. rotting matter adjacent to a barbecue will never be OK. We have a very tiny yard, minute in fact, and there are no other options than against the fence as the table and clothes line, which is on the facing on the sunny fence return, make this impossible. They will never look after the compost, as evidenced during a potentially disastrous invasion of Australian fruit flies. Despite bins in the street, huge signs everywhere around this area plus twice weekly spraying and 'advice' from biosecurity officers, they still left large amounts of rotting fruit on the ground which was never picked up and disposed of in the provided bins. "A biosecurity nightmare" according to one officer who visited the site. We are snookered unless Council makes them move the bins.

I have some comments about this part: You can't average ratios; they are NOT percentages. and C+N does not make up the 100% of the item. Imagine two buckets: [CCCNxxxx] and [CNNNNNxx]. The C:N ratios are 3:1 and 0.2:1. The total is not 3+0.2 : 1, nor half that, 1.6:1. These are not addable because nitrogen amounts are different. The total in this case is CCCC NNN NNN = 4:6 = 2:3. You could average percentages of the whole, but not ratios. I've always assumed they WERE addable, but let's work this out. I would have always said that equal amounts of these two would add up to 3.2:2 or 1.6:1. But what you're saying is that the ratio of C to N in a material is independent of the amount of each (i.e., percentage). So a material with 10% C and 1% N is 10:1, but so is a material with 1% C and 0.1% N. Yikes. Take two materials: Material A: CN 10:1 Material B: CN 100:1 The way I would have always calculated this, equal amounts of each gives 110 parts C and 2 parts N, for a final ratio of 55:1 This isn't right. Well, it's right only rarely, like a broken watch is right twice a day. Here's why. Let's do two scenarios where A and B still maintain the above ratios 10:1 and 100:1, but have different percentages of C and N in the material. Then mix equal amounts of A and B. If ratios were additive, then the final C:N of the mix should be the same for both scenarios. Scenario 1 A is 10% C, 1% N (CN=10:1) B is 10% C, 0.1% N (CN 100:1) Mix 10 lb of each. I made a little table of the contributions (in lb) [Edit: it didn't appear as a table so I added commas for clarity]. A, B, Total C: 1, 1, 2 N: 0.1 0.01, 0.11 Resulting C:N = 2:0.11 or 18:1 Scenario 2 A is 30% C, 3% N, CN= 10:1 B is 1% C, 0.01% N CN=100:1 A, B, Total C: 3, .1 , 3.1 N: 0.3, 0.001, 0.301 Resulting CN = 3.1:0.301 or 10:1 If ratios were additive, the final CN of the mixtures should be the same, but they're not. As an env. chemist, I don't know how I missed this, so I'm having a cow pattie right now. The above advice about 'observe and adjust' is the way to approach it. That and having a 'feel' for when the ratio is off or is going to be. Sawdust is generally slow to break down, so even if you mix in a lot of high N material, it can lose some N to the air because the sawdust can't decompose fast enough to use it at the rate it's being liberated.

Let me tell you my tale of woe which is still increasing my blood pressure even tonight. For the past 5 days, my house has been inundated with some type of small flies; maybe drain flies, but I have a coffee angle as well. This morning, I used the foot peddle on a plastic Rubbermaid trash receptacle in the kitchen........there must have been at least 25 in the garbage and many flew out all over my kitchen and dining room. I had noticed most seeming to come from the kitchen sink/drains, so I used the foaming disposal/drain cleaner at least twice, but that had no impact. I made coffee as usual this morning, using my Cuisinart 12-cup coffee maker, although I just make one cup and use paper filters and some organic ground coffee. I didn't really look "into" the coffee maker this morning, but I had just run vinegar and water through it the other day for the auto-clean cycle, which it really needed. Like some others in this thread have mentioned, I don't think that the standard cleaning touches every opening within the coffee maker where moisture may be allowed to linger. Later in the day, it appeared that many of these flies were around my coffee maker........to my horror, when I opened the lid on top, there must have been 15 or 20 inside the coffee maker. Even after I rinsed it out and attempted to dry it off, more flies were landing on it. It was like a horror film. I tried putting into two plastic grocery bags, since I didn't have a single bag big enough, and I shortly realized that there were flies getting into the bags like the coffee maker was a magnet. I then cleaned the coffee maker in the sink, and cleaned the canister as well and hand dried each and put the coffee maker into two other plastic bags and put it in my home office at the other end of my house. I put the canister in a separate bag and tied the top and did the same with the basket. (as I type this, there are flies landing on my hands and arms......Alfred Hitchcock can't be far away) I would guess that I have killed about 100 of these flies in the past 4 days and still am not entirely sure where they came from, but I have read that drain flies breed and hatch every 48 hours and I seem to just keep coming. If these things were in my coffee maker this morning, I must have ingested a lifetime's worth. I seem to have two sizes of these flies and the only way to kill any of them is when the land on the counter. When they are flying, it is extremely hard to kill them. I believe they are attracted to carbon dioxide, because they have flown into my eyes, nose and mouth. They sound like mosquitos when they fly near my ears. I may try the apple cider vinegar and dish soap idea before going to bed shortly, but I'm afraid that I wake up with even more tomorrow. I have read that you can add some sugar to this mixture as well. The dish soap is important. Since I could not eat lunch or dinner today because so many were landing on my food and plates, and I had to throw food away, this is really taking its toll. They are going into my kitchen cabinets and have tried to get into the microwave. I am putting many scraps that might have gone into the garbage into separate bags and tying them off. There is no open food or waste in my kitchen. I even sprayed flying bug spray into the garbage when I discovered the infestation there and it made no difference.....nothing kills these things........help !!! UPDATE: I used two suggestions found online that seem to help. One is to build a simple fly trap using apple cider vinegar and dish soap in a cup/container and put plastic wrap on top, secure with a rubber band and poke some small holes in the top with a toothpick. Flies get in; can't get out. Other thing is the suggestion to use a spray bottle and fill with water and dish soap. You can zap flies when they land somewhere and it makes it easier to kill them. Run water and disposal more frequently to make sure there is no "organic matter" that can attract more flies.