Compost Tumbler and other stuff

The homestead has a new addition! I've very excited about this item. I was gifted (in exchange for some of the (hopeful) bounty of this year's garden) a large ComposTumbler composter. This thing holds A LOT of compost. I look forward to filling this up with kitchen scraps and yard trimmings as well as the old bedding from the chickens when I change it. I still need to look into how to best use your compost in your garden. I hear of organic gardeners using compost but I've never read exactly HOW they use it. Right now I'm thinking I'll dig the furrows for my seeds and fill them in with compost, if I have enough that is.

I have heard these things have a problem with rusting out and becoming useless. This one already has some signs of rust. I may have to find ways to curb this before it gets out of hand. Perhaps sanding down the rusty areas now and applying some spray paint. Although the inside that is in constant contact with the moist compost is going to be nearly impossible to control.

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Herrick Kimball, author of The Deliberate Agrarian blog, has another blog (one of several) that I like to read each week called Agrarian Nation. He updates this first thing on Friday and Monday mornings. These blog entries are excerpts from old farmer's almanacs and other agrarian writings from long ago. A recent post contained this picture that I liked:

The text below the picture was this:

-1878-

If you can pay off all debts, so as to start with a clean bill, you can let the world wag. Debt is the load that drags so many people down. No man will be apt to fail if he takes care not to run into debt.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

I really liked that picture. You can just see the pride in the man as he holds (presumably) his young daughter up and looks at her. Its possible that I like it because I have a young daughter and I feel the same kind of pride when I look at her. :)

As far as the text goes, getting debt free is something I would like to work hard towards in 2012. I'm not calling it a "New Year's Resolution" just because those have a terrible failure rate with me...