Cohousing-L Mailing List: compost thoughts

[Denise Tennen (denisetennen]

I’m surprised to hear about rats in compost. I’ve been overseeing the compost 
here at Monterey Cohousing for most of the last 26 years and we’ve never had 
rats.

sometimes squirrels get in, but this hasn’t created any problems (other than 
occasional surprises for both the squirrel and the person)

We haven’t made any special rat-proof bins.

We are rigorous about no meat, no dairy, no fats in the compost. 

Because we use our compost strictly for the vegetable garden, I also ask that 
no paper goods go in (except for coffee filters and tea bags) as I don’t want 
to deal with bleached products. 

I wonder if the people having rats have paper products that are soiled with 
meat or dairy smells?

I layer the scraps with a soil/leaf mix, but I’m not overly rigorous about this.

we are in the Twin Cities, Minnesota.

I hope that helps…

Denise

> On May 11, 2022, at 5:16 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: Reserve Fund suggestions (Mac Thomson)
>   2. Medium-scale composting (Melanie Mindlin)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 9 May 2022 08:57:50 -0600
> From: Mac Thomson <macthomson [at] icloud.com>
> To: Coho-L-postings <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Reserve Fund suggestions
> Message-ID: <A43D1EDD-63AF-4BE3-AE24-B025A858E0F7 [at] icloud.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;     charset=utf-8
> 
> At Heartwood Cohousing, we have about $250K of cash and investment holdings 
> allocated as follows:
> 25% cash (in local bank and Vanguard MMF)
> 50% bonds (Vanguard tax-exempt bond fund: VTEAX)
> 25% stocks & REIT (Vanguard: VGSLX, VTIAX, VTSAX)
> 
> Our overriding strategy is to maintain relatively safe investments while 
> earning a decent return. Our average return for the past 8 years has been 
> 3.8%.
> 
> While I can understand the desire to be extremely conservative and not have 
> to explain to homeowners why the finance team lost some of the community?s 
> money last year through poorly preforming investments. In my opinion, being 
> too conservative is likely to be worse for community finances because of lost 
> opportunity cost. Even though lost opportunity cost doesn?t show up on the 
> P&L, it?s a real cost nonetheless. Of our $250K of reserves, over $100K of 
> that is from investment income over the past 20 years. 
> 
> -- 
> Mac Thomson
> 
> Heartwood Cohousing
> Southwest Colorado
> http://www.heartwoodcohousing.com
> 
> 
> "Endless years of wasted effort have made me the failure I am today.  And 
> Thank God.  From what I've seen of so-called success, I want no part of it."
>        - Murl Emery
> **********************************************************
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On May 6, 2022, at 1:41 PM, Bruce Koloseike <koloseik [at] bellsouth.net> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi All
>> Given the present uncertainties in the economy, what suggestions are there 
>> to be made relative to investments for our Reserve Funds?  At Westwood 
>> Co-housing, we have been relatively conservative in our holdings and some 
>> are coming due presently .  A general discussion would be appreciated
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Bruce Koloseike
>> Westwood Cohousing in Asheville, NC
>> _________________________________________________________________
>> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
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> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 9 May 2022 09:58:55 -0700
> From: Melanie Mindlin <sassetta [at] mind.net>
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Subject: [C-L]_ Medium-scale composting
> Message-ID: <DDE8712E-FC62-48E3-9600-CF9B8EA23347 [at] mind.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;     charset=utf-8
> 
> Here at Ashland Cohousing, we also really want compost for our community 
> garden. It is expensive and difficult to get good quality compost on the open 
> market. We have 13 homes and quite a bit of landscape weeds and prunings as 
> well. We have had problems with rats in the past, and when the house next to 
> the garden saw rats near our compost, they asked that we take action.
> 
> We built a 4 bin compost structure wrapped in hardware cloth on all sides. 
> This was not inexpensive to build as hardware cloth is pretty pricey, plus 
> wood and labor costs. It had a couple of bins with lift tops, and all the 
> front sides were removable with bolts and wing nuts. Barrels would not have 
> held the amount of compost we make.
> 
> We never quite understood why there there were still rats in the compost, but 
> I?m pretty sure that when they were still small, the baby rats could squeeze 
> through either the tiny cracks where the bin tops lifted or, more likely, 
> right through the hardware cloth itself. Then they would be trapped inside 
> the cage when they got larger and couldn?t get out. This left us with 
> annoying and somewhat frightening rats in a cage at our compost. Trapping was 
> not anyone?s favorite job. Without consensus, I left the cages open sometimes 
> and the rat problem went away. Over the years, our expensive compost bins 
> deteriorated and no longer closed properly, and have now been abandoned. 
> 
> We have not seen any rats around the compost for years. 
> 
> It is hard to get our residents to use best practices when delivering compost 
> to the composting area, and it often has scraps exposed on the top and other 
> messiness. However, I haven?t seen meat or cooked food there, so I think 
> folks are at least following this basic principle for keeping rats out of 
> your compost. Don?t put meat or left-overs with oils and other tasty 
> attractants in your compost?raw fruit and vegetable scraps only please!
> 
> A few of us including me, also compost in our backyards. I saw some rats near 
> the compost the year that we built our compost bins. I have not seen a single 
> rat since then (over ten years). I think we were having an ecospasm of rats 
> in our area the year that they were seen. Also, some neighbors (not in our 
> Cohousing) had chickens near the garden area and the complaining member?s 
> home. Chicken coops often attract rats with their scattered chicken feed. 
> 
> We are still challenged with best practices for making compost, but manage to 
> meet most of our compost needs through our process.
> 
> Hope this helps,
> Melanie
> 
> 
>> On May 9, 2022, at 3:16 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org wrote:
>> 
>> Subject: [C-L]_ Medium-scale composting ?
>> Message-ID: <69BBBF36-B52C-4D9F-A06A-5794776445B5 [at] garlic.com 
>> <mailto:69BBBF36-B52C-4D9F-A06A-5794776445B5 [at] garlic.com>>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;    charset=us-ascii
>> 
>> I am a relatively new member of a very suburban co-housing community. The 
>> community composted for a long time, but apparently the effort fell apart as 
>> members aged and rats moved in. I am volunteering to research how we might 
>> re-start. 
>> 
>> We have 29 units and there is municipal composting by law in California and 
>> at our community, but many of us have garden plots and spend a lot on 
>> compost we might make. Does anyone out there do composting on this medium 
>> scale? Should we consider a worm farm? Have you constructed rat-proof bins? 
>> Any experiences or resources of interest! 
>> 
>> Leah Halper
>> Yulupa Cohousing, Santa Rosa
> 
> 
> 
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> End of Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 220, Issue 10
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