Little by little...the corner compost heap is shrinking, after 4 years

Used the lengthening days today to take my spade after work and go to the plot, the first time this growing season that that was possible.

I finally made a serious dent into the inherited compost heap the previous weekend. The heap is in the southeastern corner of the plot and contains about 6 cubic meters of "stuff", the exact composition of which is only being revealed as the evening progresses and I am digging more deeply: nettle roots, a bramble, ground elder roots, bricks, rubble and lots of little stones, greenhouse glass in big jagged shards, or small lethal ones that catch you as you run your gloved hand over the sieve to push soil through, old chainlink fencing so deeply buried I can't yet get it out, disintegrating plastic carpet, disintegrating plastic bags, intact rubber gloves (scary -- after all these years!), the odd half-rotted fence post, bits from a plastic garden ornament. And genuine compost. It's the compost I'm after. My beds are getting a little exhausted. The last weekend gave them 3 wheelbarrows full of sieved and riddled compost-heap compost. Today I shall continue.

I'm pretty much on my own on the site -- the evenings are still cold and windy but at least it stays light until about 7pm. I punch through 3 more wheelbarrows of fresh compost and sieve and riddle for England -- the glass and plastic goes into the general rubbish bucket, to be wheeled back and disposed of safely in our household bin. The bricks, stones and rubble go on a little heap, collected for the various potholes in the central path of our site. All the roots go on another heap: they'll be burnt. It's hard on my stomach muscles and hard on my shoulders because I'm so out of shape and I know I will regret it in a few days and I also wonder about the crap I'm breathing in as the dust swirls up and I imagine going down with rat-borne hanta virus, but then I forget about it all and just think about how it is also tremendously satisfying to watch the heap I'm standing on slowly shrink, and all from my own efforts. The day I will be able to pull the chainlink fencing out will be another big, big step. And the day when I've cleared it all and the new compost (currently resting in another heap) is ready to go in, I'll take a picture and post it here.