I had mixed feelings when I managed to shovel about half the baby's load into the bigger tumbler the next time I topped it off. On the one hand, it did give the baby some relief from the most fibrous part of its load, but it was a bit disheartening to see half of the results of all that work disappearing in one big gulp. I mixed more fertilizer into the rest and gave the baby a few spins. I left it to digest its load some more, marveling at how it could look so much like compost and yet not be the light, crumbly material in the pictures.

I had a bit of cheer a few days later when a seed order arrived. Mother had been complaining about her yard being turned into a desert, so I had been planting some left-over vegetable seeds from earlier gardens. They had enough life left that some plants came up and added nice patches of green to the bare areas between the trees. The sad proof of the demise of most of her perennials was altogether evident. The garden was going to need to be largely replanted around the flowering trees and shrubs that still survived.

On the other hand, it did leave lots of room to put in more vegetables. The tomato seedlings had mostly survived the late transplant into the hot, sunny garden and were growing stronger. The cats had left them alone, preferring to play briefly in the open areas of the yard before the heat drove them to their favorite napping spots. So far, my plans to protect them were succeeding, and with luck they would be big and strong enough to withstand the cats once the weather turned cool in the fall.

I did get some flowers as well as some peas and Swiss Chard for a fall garden. I got out my pots and potting soil and arranged everything according to what needed to be started indoors. I had a few things that needed to go in the refrigerator briefly to convince them that they were being started in cool, spring-like temperatures, so I cleared out the bottom shelf above the vegetable drawers for those varieties.

Opening the first package of small seeds confirmed the unhappy truth that I had had to face earlier about my crafting and reading. Gravity was not the only thing being cruel to me in my old age. I had been smugly happy about my nearsightedness correcting to pretty good vision for several years, but now I was getting farsighted for close work. At first I just held the books and newspapers out a bit, and I got busy with other things so that I didn't have time to craft much. It had finally gotten to the point that I had to ask my eye doctor about it at my last visit, and I was told that the solution was reading glasses.

That didn't suit me at all. I had gotten quite used to not having a pair of glasses perched on my nose except for driving. I never liked the idea of putting contacts into my eyes. Nevertheless, I had gotten to the point of using a magnifying glass to read and my last quilt was languishing where I had set it aside. I checked my website quilting pages and discovered that it had been about two years since I last finished a quilt. It was clearly time to face up to yet another indignity of old age and get a pair of reading glasses.

There was quite a selection of reading glasses available, from prim to sporty to unbelievably flamboyant. They looked like a throwback to the 1960's, perhaps designed for an aging but still fanciful flower child. I sighed and dutifully followed the instructions on the chart on how to select the proper strength lenses, then looked for a pair with frames like my "driving" glasses. After giving them a try while trying to ignore the world reeling around me for objects at different distances than their focal length, I finally took the pair to the checkout counter and handed over the cash for them.

I had to admit that they did make it considerably easier to read, although I had been too busy to try quilting with them. Now I had to try to sow small, dark seeds into dark potting soil. I put on my reading glasses and watched carefully as I tapped the packet to nudge the seeds to its lip for the fertile plunge into the waiting soil. I squinted at the blurry line breaking into dots and flowing into a line again and sighed. This wasn't working very well.

I realized that my eyes were considerably farther from the seed packet than they were from a book since I was standing beside the table with the pot at about my waist level, several inches farther away than a book would be held at about fourteen inches from my eyes. I recalled an article that mentioned that it helped to tell your doctor how far away you needed to be able to see clearly. Oh, Doctor, I'm so sorry I jabbed you with my quilting needle! Won't it be wonderful when we get the prescription for my glasses just right so I can see where I'm sewing?

I sighed and contemplated getting another pair of reading glasses for work like sowing seeds and sewing quilts held at about my waist level. At least they weren't very expensive. It was too late to go to the store tonight, though. I bent over until I could see the seeds clearly, feeling like a cat curiously sniffing at the pot. Fortunately, the cats had already left in disgust at yet more unworthy objects getting my attention or there might have been several noses hovering over the soil investigating this latest outbreak of peculiar behavior.

I managed to get most of the seeds sown before I ran out of potting soil. I watered them carefully, both to keep from washing them to the surface and to avoid splashing water on my face. As long as I bowed over the pots, I could see well enough to get the job done. I put the seeds needing warm germination temperatures on the porch and put the seeds needing cooler temperatures under my indoor plant light or in the refrigerator. I considered giving a good look at the baby's load but decided against it. I didn't feel up to seeing its constipated clumps clearly after saluting that many pots.

Several days later the first eager seedlings were up, the tomatoes were happily holding up strong green leaves to the light while needing frequent watering of the bare soil around them, and the baby was still constipated. Worse than that, the bigger tumbler was starting to look constipated, too. The secret to that fabled fourteen day crumbly compost was clearly to mulch everything that went into the tumblers. If you didn't, you had to wait weeks to months until the tiny microorganisms chewing up your garden waste managed to gnaw it into crumbly bits. The baby had done its best with what I gave it and turned it into dark brown clumps of compost. Stronger measures were needed.

I started on my plan to finally relieve the baby early in the morning while it was still cool. I marshaled my tools quietly while my amused family was still in bed. My brother had snickered quite enough about the baby's constipation. I raked together more leaves and weeds into the designated relief area and mulched them with the mower. I then added some newspaper to soak up any excess fertilizer that might still linger in the baby's load, discovering that mulching mowers do not like to mulch newspaper in the process. It would chop it into pieces about one inch across and blow it around like dirty slush. I furtively raked it back up and mixed it into the pile of mulched leaves.

Now, for the great unburdening. Even with about half its load transferred into the bigger tumbler, the baby was still quite heavily filled. I gently removed its door, positioned a cardboard box beneath its mouth, and inserted a shovel into the balls. The baby and I both heaved and strained as the material plopped into the box. After several trips to the mulch pile, dumping the balls out and chopping them into the mulch with a hoe, I finally got the baby unloaded enough to roll it out to the mulch pile with the last of its load swaying in its belly.

I positioned the baby carefully, wedged my feet against its wheels so it couldn't escape, and gave it one more fateful spin. With a sodden rumble, the baby finally disgorged most of its load. A few soggy clumps had to be scraped free and lifted out to join the rest of the pile, and then the baby was finally relieved! I was just about as relieved as well, as I had noted signs of life in the house indicating that my family was awake and starting to move about. I chopped and mixed the rest of the load into the mulch, then moved the baby back to its spot.

A few soggy passes with the mower to chop up the remaining fiber, and I was able to declare that I had successfully made compost mulch for the tomatoes with the baby's load. My brother was still amused and still snickering about the constipation, contemplating the condition of the other tumbler. I spread the mulch around the tomatoes, leaving several inches around them clear so any fertilizer wouldn't burn them, and watered them well.

I then mulched more leaves and weeds and filled it again with layers of newspaper, mulch, and fertilizer, adding water with caution. Why would I want to go through that again, one might wonder? For the same reasons that gardeners start gardens even though we know we are going to have to fight weeds and bugs to grow the same produce that we could buy. We like to pretend that we are improving nature while secretly indulging a masochistic streak, but at least we don't have to sign up at a health club and wriggle into spandex to do it.

I can wait several weeks longer before I have to face relieving the bigger tumbler if I gave it indigestion from too much unmulched fiber. I've learned a lot about using these tumblers, and the bigger tumbler is running a lot hotter so maybe there is hope that it will digest its fiber better. This yard needs a lot of mulch if it comes to that, and just think how wonderful the soil will be next spring! That assumes, of course, that I will be able to get out of bed to garden next spring after emptying the tumblers this summer.