A Neighborhood Worm
We put food scraps in a huge jar under our sink. When it fills past the point of putting the lid back on, I take the stinking contents to our compost pile at the rear of our garden. Before turning back to the house, I cover the dump corner with a few hand-fills of leaves.
The corner with this year's food scraps is left to slowly mound. Each Spring I use a pitch fork on the rest of the pile like a giant shoveling a mountain in search of gold veins. When white-powdered leaves give way to a layer of rich, new dirt I smile. Leaves and scraps turn into a whole ecosystem that churns out fertile soil!
Stomping through the snow on winter nights in pj pants with my open jar full of stink, I sometimes wonder at my strangeness. That spring joy seems dim. But then I look up at the winter sky, stars so bright in the cold air, and realize even in January I am happy composting.
My neighbors have similar yards and tall trees like mine. Yet they have a different answer to the leaves. I am not sure they see the questions:
A curse or a blessing? An annual interruption or a series of invitations? A problem or a resource? Bagged to the curb or tarpped to the garden? Pay a distant truck or befriend a neighborhood worm?