Compost Crimes

The only thing heavier than manure is a price tag

Rob had a plan.
A frugal, muscled, manure-laced plan.
“Why would we pay for compost,” he asked with a straight face,
“when we have tons of it sitting right there in Caspian’s pasture?”

He gestured toward the rolling expanse of the donkey kingdom like it was brimming with untapped riches.
“It’s free!” he said.
“Just a little labor.”

A little labor.

What Rob failed to mention was that this “free” manure came with a multi-step gauntlet of trials.
First, you had to fill a wheelbarrow with the sacred poo—three full loads just to make a dent.
Then came the real test: shoving it over the unforgiving lip of the gate, a move that required either brute force or a rotting shiplap ramp built out of splinters and one good heave.

Or, if you wanted to get fancy, you could slingshot it from the far side—right up against our Alcatraz-grade fence—and pray Caspian didn’t make a break for freedom.

And if by some miracle you managed not to baptize yourself in donkey droppings and drag your prize all the way up the gravel driveway to The Monet Garden—well, you could consider yourself divinely chosen.
Blessed by heaven and flora.

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Naturally, when Rob left on a work trip to Miami to fix helicopters (a much cleaner endeavor than air-frying manure), I took matters into my own dirt-smeared hands.

I added bags of pre-composted equine nuggets to the grocery list.
At just over $2 a bag, it was practically a spa treatment—with no donkey braying in the background and no threat of slipping on hockey pucks.

I drove the car right up to the garden gate, lifted each blessed bag out like it was a newborn calf swaddled in black gold, and dropped it like it was fresh.
No shovel wrestling.
No donkey surveillance.
No uphill martyrdom.

And the best part?
I didn’t smell like a barn for three days afterward.

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So yes, I technically committed a compost crime.
But in the eyes of tired arms, overburdened wheelbarrows, and delicate nostrils everywhere…
I am the hero this garden needed.

Let him think it came from the pasture.
Let him believe I earned every shovel’s worth with biceps and glutes.
I’ll never tell.

I am woman.
I am gardener.
I am compost criminal—
and I have no regrets.