stop the slaughter!

What happened to the word mispronounce? Whenever anyone is afraid of mispronouncing someone's name, they say that they don't want to "slaughter" the name. Why "slaughter"? I guess it's supposed to be funny, or clever. It is neither.

some thoughts on dirt

I recently picked the last tomato from my garden for the season. This was a better year than last year for tomatoes. One reason is that this is the first year I used composted soil. I turned old leaves, grass clippings, and other unwanted things into dark, rich soil. Which then became beautiful fruits and vegetables in my garden.

Growing up, my father always had an active composting program. One year he asked me to cut down and mulch a large, nasty bush called a firethorn. It had extremely sharp thorns that were about 1 1/2 inches long. Even with protection over my arms and legs, I had minor cuts all over. But I eventually got the whole thing cut up, and I fed it through a shredder into the compost. With much satisfaction.

I checked on the compost and the mulched firethorn a few months later. The thorns were all still there, but they were getting softer. I checked back about a year later, and the firethorn was still identifiable, but the thorns weren't sharp at all. About 2 1/2 years after the initial composting, that awful bush was rich, organic soil. It was really satisfying.

That sold me on composting, both as a gardening practice and as a metaphor for life: Awful experiences can become tremendously beneficial, with effort, pain, and a lot of time.