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Successful Manure & Waste Management
Paragon Site Preparation
May 10th, 2010 by peter
May 4 / Day 2
You may have heard that it rains in the Pacific Northwest, and this week it has been doing just that – Raining (with a capital “R”).
Rock Slinger Placing Ballast
On Tuesday, May 4th we placed a rock layer on the base of the excavation to provide a stable surface on which to pour the concrete slab for the Paragon Compost System. The base of the excavation was very wet and the soil would easily be churned up to become mud if this work was done with a front-end loader. To make this a fast and easy process, a “Rock Slinger” was hired to place the rock in the excavation.
The operator (in the red t-shirt) used a remote control to move the conveyor from left to right, up and down and faster and slower; and in this way he placed nearly 12 tons of 2-inch rock in less than 30-minutes, and exactly where we wanted it. Who says that video games are a waste of time?
Ryan Burke
Meet Ryan Burke, the newest addition to O2Compost. Ryan is a 2009 graduate from Washington State University where he completed work on his Civil Engineering Bachelor’s Degree. He has some construction experience and will help Roger Portman (farm owner) build the Paragon System. Ryan has no experience with composting. I will be training him and Roger to fill the bins, start up the system, monitor the process through the Active and Curing Phases, and take samples for laboratory analysis.
Composting is experiential. Much like learning to ride a bicycle or play a musical instrument, you must “do it to learn it”. As we go through this process, you will see that composting is really quite easy, and is an elegant solution to on-farm manure management.
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