I dig my hands into the different parts of the pile - here and there - to feel how hot, to feel the texture. The pile is easily twenty feet long, thirty or forty across and more than a hundred long. Grass clippings, leaves, pine needles. Steam. Three more piles.

Is it getting enough water, I wonder. Two feet of snow and ice, 2 inches of water and mud, and this spot is dry over here.

Is it getting enough air, I ask?

No way.

What about pine needles, I ask?

Look at this, the instructor reaches into his cart and pulls out a couple of 4 inch long, 1 inch diameter "turds" - he says that's what they call them at the UMaine compost school - these are two pine cones. They've been in there nearly two years and they still look like pine cones.

What about the pesticides and insecticides in the grass clippings, someone else asks? What about using it in the garden?

We don't recommend using it to start vegetables, but for soil amendments it's good. We don't know what's in it and can'tguarantee it.

I wonder about the grass clippings hauled to the transfer stationfor recycling by consumers in shiny pickup trucks and lawn are contractors with their dumpers and trailers.

I wonder at the grass clippings from lawns fertilized with the 4 step, 11 step or weekly step program of pesticides, insecticides, crittercides and nutrients provided for the most part by fossil energy. Trucks to collect and haul these materials to the recycling center - all fueled by fossil energy. Cycled over and over by a big John Deere front loader high on fossil energy.

Do you sell this?

It's free.

Does one have to be from Yarmouth to get it?

Supposed to be, but we give it to anyone. We're happy to see it reused and to clear the yard.

What about the energy balance, I didn't ask. I'm thinking how I scraped most of the leaf mold off my two acres into my garden. I'm thinking how I need to put it back, because now that the garden is starting to produce I'm turning my attention to restoring the blackberries, raspberries and apple orchard. A foot of mulch FEDCO says under the trees. A foot of wood chip mulch for the rows of berries. I figure I need two 40 yard tractor trailer loads - way more than I scavenged into my gardens in the first place - and that's just for the berries. How does that work, I didn't ask. How do I build my garden without taking from someone else's?

What can one produce sustainably from a plot of land? Excepting sunlight and comet dust, nothing is free, not even the rain.

What is the footprint of a 50# bag of Pro-Gro 5-3-4? Is it possible to manage that input - stripped from mother earth elsewhere - so that there is a net gain summed over my plot of land and the source of the fertilizer. The Laws of Thermodynamics suggest not. How is it that rich white Americans exist?

The Cumberland County Soil Survey tells me I have two acres of Peru very fine rocky sand. Suitable for growing white pine.

Why'd you plant those AWFUL things, Daphne from across the street asked?

Rain, sunlight and comet dust. On the electric bass, cue God. Beat well.

Depending on how much agricultural surplus we can generate we get bigger and smaller cities, libraries, hospitals and cola companies, marketing departments and Schools of Economics, college students with hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to financial institutions dependent on the sales of more cola and pharma and the credentialling of more graduates focused on consuming and selling more cola and pharma.

Even as a mediocre gardener on poor rocky soil, I can grow enough food: beans, potato, squash, beets. Heat maybe - a shower once a week in the winter and a house at 55 or 60. Fiber and shelter is harder. How many pounds of vegetables for a polar-fleece? How many pounds of black beans to make a modern home?

I can't grow enough grass to build a car and power it. No matter what skills and contributions I make to society, even if one places a high value on my education and technical abilities, what is my car if not my birthright as a rich white American? My birthright to an unbounded unecological unsustainable footprint.

Like and unlike compost, our economic system. Compost recycles organic matter into the soil. Slowly and locally. Our economic system turns petroleum into grass clippings. From one side of the planet to the other, as rapidly as possible.

What is the footprint of compost?

Only rich white Americans need be taught of the virtue of compost. Only rich white Americans would worry about what is in the compost - no one else has much of anything bad to put into it. No one else would worry about pissing in next year's compost pile.

I didn't wash my hands all day. The compost smelled too good. And it was free.