Steve, I believe that his concern was the salts and fats that are used in cooking and the fact that his composting is done in an urban setting and the resultant problems from pests like rats, mice and other undesirable critters. I don't think that there is a real problem with the inclusion of animal parts as they decompose on the surface in nature. We used to purchase free-range chickens from a local biological farmer and he added the feathers, heads and innards to his compost pile. Malcolm Beck mentions composting animals in his book "The Secret Life of Compost"(I know this should be underlined but I don't know how to do it), and actually advocates the composting of humans following the cessation of life rather than embalming with toxic chemicals. Beck contends that everything should be recycled including sewage sludge in order for agriculture to be sustainable. I see his point but I still have questions regarding heavy metals, chemicals including petroleum based cleaning agents and even medicines that can be in the waste stream. Using sewage sludge on my property still gives me the creeps although I've heard some informed folks advocate it's use. I've also read accounts of people fouling their land with it and the results are forever.

Hello, We have a couple flower beds and shrubs in front of our house, nothing fancy (variegated weigela, burning bush, hydrangeas, geraniums, bulbs, shasta daisies). We shred all our junk mail, and now have more shredded paper than we can use for packing material! I'm intrigued by the idea of using it as mulch, since we probably need more mulch in the flower beds anyway. I have no idea if the inks in the junk mail are soy-based or not, and no means or inclination to try to chase down that information. However, we don't have any food plants in the garden and don't anticipate adding any. I read the 2005 post on another thread about filling a water bucket with shredded paper and laying down the mulch, and that sounds like the method we'd be most likely to use. Would our shredded junk mail make acceptable mulch for our nonfood garden? Or would something in the various junk mail hurt our plants? What do you think? I appreciate any advice you can offer. I'm interested in all this stuff but pretty clueless! :) Thank you in advance!

I did that (kinda) with hand shredded newspapers under fall leaves/straw mix last year in one small bed and it was pretty much all broke down by spring. In another bed...a new one I dug up/enlarged last fall I layered whole newspaper sheets with cardboard and topped with straw to hopefully smother any leftover raspberry and quackgrass roots. I made holes in it and transplanted some perennials into it. Well the roots of everything I was smothering died off, but the whole sheets of newspaper and cardboard were still barely broken down even by June. I ended up removing the cardboard and ripped up the newspapers to add back and topped it all with bagged fall leaves that I crushed up. Normally I like to wait to lay fall mulch down AFTER a few hard freezes with just straw and leaves. Vera

I hope this link works, Mudlady.. I'll test it before I leave this forum. But...if it doesn't...enter the "Kindle+Fire+for+Dummies" into any one of your search engines [i.e. Google, duckduck, Bing] and it should bring up a long list of "Dummy" books to assist you with the operation of your new Kindle. Additionally...there are a myriad of Dummy books explicitly for computers and their operation. To that...let me add...that you're doing far better...and are braver than me. :-) I don't own a Kindle [or any similar product] and my cell phone is still the flip up kind. I'm loosing my sight to macular degeneration and over the next several years...it's anyone's guess as to what, if anything I may be able to see/operate. But I do have your determination so I forge on...undaunted. Good luck with your latest project. Kindle Dummy help [click on this link] of enter the URL below into your browser. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Kindle+Fire+for+Dummies&ia=products Anne