A Tough Cookie

A seemingly annual spring activity for me is building compost bins. I started with one, which got filled easily over the course of a Spring/Summer cycle. So I built a second one and harvested some of the compost from the first. Unfortunately, the second one also got completely filled and I also filled the first one again. So I needed a third bin, in addition to trying to harvest compost from the other two.

Understandably, I wasn’t to keen on getting the job done because it’s messy, unpleasant work. There are bugs everywhere and even if the temps were below freezing, I’d be perspiring like it’s the middle of Summer. I finally did the deed yesterday and, while I was moving compost between the new bins, the lass decided she was going to help. So she fetched a small pitch fork the Wife typically uses for spreading mulch.

Unfortunately for the lass, and myself, she isn’t tall enough to toss the compost over the fences that make the bins. She was only able to get at the compost because I’d fashioned a rather crude gate for the front. So she did her best to scoop up compost as I was. Then she’d ask me to do something with it. So I’d take the pitchfork from her, toss it into a bin and hand it back to her.

Well, that happened exactly 3 times. Because on the 3rd time, as I went to hand the pitch fork back to her, I felt the unmistakable impact of the pitchfork handle on her nose. It also made a soft combo smooshing-crunching noise that actually had me initially concerned I’d broken her nose.

I dropped everything and went over to tend to her. She was crying pretty hard and she exclaimed that her nose was bleeding. She’d cupped her hands beneath her nose. I got a quick glimpse of her face and there was no swelling, so I was relieved that I hadn’t actually broken anything. So I pinched her nose and walked with her back up to the house. By the time we reached the house, the crying had downgraded to soft whimpers, and by the time on got her on the counter she had settled down completely.

She looked in worse shape than she actually was- blood was caking on her lower jaw and had soaked into the sleeves of her shirt. The Wife came down to see what had happened and we started cleaning her up while making sure we get her nose pinched to stop the bleeding.

While we were cleaning her up, she asked only 1 question: did she get any blood on her shirt? It was a “Hello Kitty” shirt and was her favorite. The Wife took care of soaking the shirt sleeves to get the stains out.

Good to know she was worried about the important stuff.