&nbsp;
<div class="entry-content">
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara</em></p>
I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. In fact, there are several pieces of paper on my wall that would confirm this fact. Every once in a while, however, I come across something that makes no sense to me.

This was the case a couple of weeks ago when I went to let the chickens out. There was smoke coming from the compost pile. <a href="https://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/smoke.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5781" src="https://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/smoke.jpg?w=300&amp;h=206" alt="smoke" width="300" height="206" /></a>We have had an inordinate amount of rain recently (see <a href="https://judythewriter.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/mud-mud-lots-of-mud/" target="_blank">lasts Friday’s post on mud</a>) and the compost was soaking wet so I could not figure out how it could be smoking.

On this Friday, I was traveling with grades 7 and 8 to the Austin to play ukuleles in the rotunda of the State Capital. (This is a story in and of itself and might serve to contradict my claim to intelligence.)

Anyway, since I would not be at home, I could not monitor the situation so I poured more water on the smoke and went on to school.

The bus driver happened to be very knowledgeable about gardening so I asked her about the smoking compost. She assured me this was a good thing and simply meant we needed to turn the compost. I was relieved.

Yesterday, Matt came to me somewhat concerned and asked “Is there a reason there is smoke coming from the green wire things with grass in them?”

I knew he was referring to the smoking compost and explained that it meant the compost was cooking and needed to be turned.

He said, “I guess you could say things are really ‘cooking’ at the Miller house this summer.”

</div>