The wheelbarrow had about 200 lbs of wet soppy manure in it by the time I decided to call it full. It was then that I realized that between me and the compost pile was an assortment of now super mud encrusted lumber and boards haphazardly laid out like pick up sticks. This was not good.
I told myself the official compost "structure" was really just a place to hold the fermenting goop so the dogs wouldn't rolling in it. It wasn't like I was actively turning it or trying to speed the decomposition process. Then it occurred to me that all sopping wet layers of straw, leaves, shredded paper, feed dregs, and "barn dirt" would compost just as well in a long berm as it would in the declared compost pile. Plus, the berm would slow down storm water run off and maybe catch some of the confetti and sludge before it hit the driveway.
As I pitchforked it out of the wheel barrow I flipped each piece so the hard crusted side was down and the stinky juicy side was up. It seemed like a good way to get the fumes to disperse. The problem was that to build up the berm I would have to stack the pieces. The ammonia would stay trapped between the layers and burn anything I tried to plant.
