happy equinox

Equinox is a day to celebrate cycles. The growing part after being fallow is always exciting! This is our first tiny shoot of garlic coming up in the raised boxes we put on our driveway, which we planted late in the fall. We hoarded some garlic bulbs from groceries to plant, so we're really excited it worked (so far!)

Works-in-Progress is all about making closed loop systems beautiful and fun. This little baby garlic is part of a cycle at our house that we've slowly been working on for a couple of years, and best of all, it includes bunnies!

These are Foofy and Sherlock, who are the angora bunny members of our family. Sherlock sadly died last year, but her buddy Foofy is still munching away, shedding so much angora fibre, and, very importantly, pooping.

So much bunny poop.

Foofy's litter (yes, bunnies can be litter trained!) feeds into a part of our household cycle: our compost. I was so excited when we built this!

Other things that go in our compost: veggie scraps. Being vegetarian, there are lots of those. Things that don't go in our compost: dairy, fat, grains (the rats and raccoons around here already have plenty to eat!) We keep our eggshells, dry them and grind them once or twice a year to add as well, to get some calcium in there. Looking at waste as a resource starts being habitual the more practice we get. Start with upcycling your sweaters at a Works-in-Progress workshop and next thing you know there's a container of eggshells on your counter ;-) 

After the compost sits for a year, magic happens. The hay, the rabbit poop and the veggie scraps turn into gold:

Our first crop last summer was greens. One of the surprise benefits of using your scraps as compost is random old potatoes that survive the winter cozy in the compost then decide to sprout and grow more potatoes!

We use that deliciousness food for energy to brush Foofy, and he also gives us soft soft fibre that my daughter turns into yarn.

Which I turn into:

So happy equinox and happy thinking about the cycles in your household too!

​-Marnie