Mulch.

Depending on where you live and whether you have a yard, you may be involved with a time-honored rite of Spring called mulching. Mulch comes in various flavors but I have grown accustomed to a type called “triple-shredded hardwood mulch”. This material is a rich loam that I place around trees and shrubs and other wild areas of the yard.

I envy folks who can order their mulch in neatly wrapped plastic bags because I have to buy mine in bulk, 12 cubic yards dumped in an imposing pile on our driveway, leaving just enough room for a car to squeeze by. There it sits, daring the wheelbarrows and rakes to come and spread it far and wide.

The smell of this mulch is robust and natural; an attempt to make the yard appear to be a cultivated forest floor, like DisneyLand rising from the savanna, absent beasts and mushrooms.

One year the mulch pile apparently contained the eggs of millipedes, which then hatched and began walking around. These little critters are just pests in the sense that they can’t hurt you, but having them all over was disconcerting. I hope this year does not repeat this problem, but we’ll see.

There are some admirable folks who make their own mulch or compost. This amounts to a large plastic drum with a top that closes, into which you can put various waste products. Over time biological processes break down the material into compost or soil. We tried that some years ago but lacked the discipline to follow through. Hence our mulching bin sits forlornly near the back fence, its potential lost in hope and promises. No millipedes though, so there is that.