Compost

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but I’ve started to pick up an interest in farming. Maybe I did mention it when I said I was reading Walden, and Thoreau was saying all we really need is food and shelter. ...Or maybe I just said that verbally to someone but never actually wrote it down.

Anyway, lot’s of interesting things about farming, but for this post I’ll just mention something about composting...or rather the bacteria that rise to power in hot composting and how it relates to human cultures as well.

The basic setup is like this; given the right conditions in the compost, bacteria will move in and raise the temperature of the the pile to make it inhospitable for other organisms, thus insuring their own survival. This new condition, in turn, gives rise to other bacteria that raise the temperature more, eliminating the first batch of bacteria. Then this new environment gives rise to another type of bacteria that turns the heat up more, eliminating the second batch. And so forth.

The interesting thing is that the third batch of bacteria could not have come into power were it not for the second batch, nor could the second batch have come into power without the first batch. And the first batch could not have come into power were it not for the right conditions in the compost.

I’ve been reading a lot about the French Revolution lately out of some concern for the similar conditions to the US right now. But that’s were the idea came from. The first batch; King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the second batch; Maximilien Robespierre, and the third batch; Napoleon.