The first bloom of the Daphne opened today. Mmm. One of my favorite smells.

One of my least favorite smells has been coming off the compost heap lately. It’s wet and rank. I dumped some shredded paper into it today (it’s been low on “browns”) and gave it a good aeration. Even with my new improved Pilates-ized strength, I can just barely spin the barrel around its axle these days. It’s time to start a new batch and let this one finish off. The City of Seattle suggests that simply burying kitchen scraps at least 8 inches deep is a good way to compost. Since I have only the one compost tumbler, I might let the compost finish underground, depending on the weather and my ability to work. (Still getting over that cold. There sure are some nasty bugs going around.)

According to the water supply information from Seattle Public Utilities, snowpack is about 12 percent of normal in the Cedar watershed and 25 percent of normal in the South Fork Tolt watershed. Yikes. This would be a good time to hook up that second water barrel, and perhaps I’ll see if I can get my hands on a third one.

[Just after I posted this, SPU updated their page to note that the snowpack numbers are now 9 and 21 percent of normal respectively. Yeesh.]