Diaper Guilt

One of the items on my list is to plant impatiens around the back porch. The idea sprang from the most wonderful Mothers' Day present ever. A lone, beautiful impatien arrived in a paper cup, nestled in a gift bag the boy decorated at school. He was so proud of his gift. Of course, I cried over it. He still brings it up. "Mommy, remember when you cried when you were happy because I gave you the flower?" We planted it together. I didn't have a lot of hope for that tiny plant, because my thumb is definitely more black than green. But it thrived. We occasionally watered it but more often, would just wander over to admire it when we were on our way to or from the house.

I've decided there must be something about the amount of sun and rain that patch receives that is just right for impatiens. I'm excited to try, too, because I have some awesome compost to use. Uh, that's right; I'm excited about DIRT. I didn't know that could happen until I started composting.

I decided to try it three years ago. Even without being a gardener. Why? Partly, guilt. I try to make environmentally-friendly choices - I recycle, use earth-friendly cleaning products, carry reusable bags to the grocery. But I could NOT bring myself to use cloth diapers. The idea of dumping poopy diapers into the toilet and having even more laundry (or the expense of a diaper service) was just too daunting. So, I went the way of Pampers and the Diaper Genie, but have alway felt hypocritical and guilty about it. I figure that keeping some of my trash out of the landfills will offset (yes, I know, not by much) all those diapers we put in.

It's been really easy, too. Even Jim is convinced (he was certain we'd end up with a smelly pile of garbage in the backyard). I throw in vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, and egg shells year round, mixing everything with a pitchfork, now and then. I throw in some leaves in the fall. If it gets a little stinky, I add shredded newspapers. And I always feel a bit silly at how excited I am to harvest dirt from the bottom of the bin. It's just so . . . rewarding, I guess, to make something useful out of something that could be tossed away without a thought.