Wood chipper, and the trouble with our house as experiment site!

One step of progress - I bought a wood chipper and have used it to demolish lots of our property's yard waste!  In talking with the designer of the aerated compost system, it's important to have wood chips be part of the compost mix.  These wood chips provide structural strength to the pile, keeping it from compressing too much and becoming too dense to keep up a pore structure that the forced air can flow through.  The wood chips also create void space in the pile.

 

Family was in town last week for Mother's Day, and my father-in-law and I set up and used the wood chipper for the first time.  Fun stuff! 

On the downside, we've got a dead tree with a V-branched trunk in between our house and our neighbor's house near the site of the old compost bin where we're going to build the new compost bin.  That tree really needs to come down because it's a threat to both houses and the area likely needs to be clear to get some equipment back there.  So we'll build the composting system after the tree is removed.  The downside of using your own home as the experiment site ... there are other needs and considerations involved too!

 

I'll continue to keep everyone updated.  Research while holding down a totally separate full-time job is slow, but rest assured it will move forward!