In this week’s CSA newsletter, the farmer talked about his compost pile and that they will be using it to enrich the soil as they’re preparing the fields for the coming winter.
I got to thinking about this compost pile and what it’s comprised of: vegetables that were overripe and not fit for sale; produce that was too damaged by insects and animals and, therefore, unfit for consumption; weeds; other organic matter that wasn’t plowed back into the soil or recycled in some other way.
The farmer collects all this waste in one area then occasionally turns it, perhaps adds more to it every now and again, turning once in a while, and repeating this procedure (I am by no means an expert in composting so I may not have this completely correct, but from my occasional observations, this is what the farmer seems to do!).
A compost pile is basically an alchemist’s lab for plant and other organic materials. This “useless” garbage is transformed into nutrient rich materials that enrich the soil. Farmers call compost Black Gold.
Then I started thinking about how compost piles relate to ideas. How many times do we come up with ideas that we toss to the side–essentially, we toss them in the garbage. Instead of throwing them away, perhaps we ought to consider composting them.
Perhaps we can have a file or some other sort of system that collects our ideas and keeps them neat and safe. Periodically, we can refer back to them, going through them and looking for ones that fit with the situation we’re in now. Perhaps one or two ideas can be combined to come up with one that’s really a blockbuster for our current circumstances.
We can also refer to the ideas just to go over them and refresh our memories and let them perk on the back burner of our minds. This way, when we come up against a problem, we’ll have just the right solution already in mind, this turning a challenged into an opportunity!
You can do it!
Your Friend and Pep Pal,
Lauren
Yes I Can Pep Talks 