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If youre like me, you can fill up one of those stainless steel compost buckets in just one family meal prep.

Its a little bit of backyard magic.

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A little bit of alchemy and thrift.

And its one of the most responsible things you can do.

Im talking about compost.

Turning what soil transformed into plants back into soil so it can transform into plants again.

A perfect example of how things ought to work.A perfectly closed loop.

Older homes seemed to always have a compost pit for lawn clippings and leaf debris.

When I was a kid, poking those pits to reveal skeins of baby worms was fascinating. Turning the compost pile was just one of those things adults did, like putting up Christmas lights or cleaning gutters. In my childish estimation, composting was a necessary part of adulthood, perhaps not as thrilling as burning stuff in an incinerator can, but entertaining in its own right.

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Retired microbiologist Dr. Peter Stovell, The Compost King of Kerrisdale, lived down the block from me. His front yard was eaten up with gigantic compost piles of food scraps collected from UBC Food Services, each pile swathed in black plastic. He could be seen routinely plunging augers and pitchforks into each pile to determine I dont know what. Giant thermometers registered the temperatures of each pyramid. Dr. Stovell was discovered one midnight hosing down the piles, alarmed by the elevated temperatures the decomposing material had generated. We imagined him hollering, Run! Shes gonna blow! as his decomposing banana peels and apple cores created their own China Syndrome.

I bought myself a fancy composter that, in order to speed up the decomposition process, spins in its own cradle. A dark and distinguished apparatus, it is tucked into one discreet corner of the garden. Ive given it several years of sincere effort, but I simply cannot get it to spin once its even one-third full. Its like trying to get a Saint Bernard into a car.

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To that end, I had defaulted to the City of Vancouver green bin composting program. Being a girl with tartan blood, this wasnt entirely satisfactory. All that nutrient-rich material being outsourced when my own garden could have benefited? Alas!

Years ago, I did a TV series on environmental tips. One of the tips was to run food scraps through a blender to make a liquid fertilizer. I take that back do not do that. I learned the hard way that if you pour liquefied caesar salad around your geraniums, rats will dig up those geraniums looking for the croutons they suspect were part of the deal.

So, how to reconcile my Scottish self with my composting genes? Id heard about Pela, a B.C. company that was revolutionizing composting. I contacted them and they sent one of their devices to test. Its called the Lomi and it is to composting what the washing machine was to the washboard. What my not-so tumbling composter takes a year to do, the Lomi claims to do overnight: kitchen waste into topsoil within 20 hours. As a woman who has forsaken miracle skin creams for lard, I was skeptical.

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If youre like me, you can fill up one of those stainless steel compost buckets in just one family meal prep. If the Lomi did what it said it could do, it might be the end to the endless discussion of who was going to dump the bucket. I set the Lomi up on my kitchen counter and loaded it with the detritus of meal preparations. Its a handsome apparatus and looks like what a bread machine would look like were it designed by Steve Jobs. I set the program for warp-speed composting the Lomi setting as opposed to the two lesser settings and waited to be astonished.

The next morning I took off the lid and discovered that my bucket full of food scraps had been transformed. Where there had been potato peels, orange rinds, egg shells, and something indistinguishable discovered from the back of the fridge, there was now a fine, dry soil. The mass of the kitchen scraps was reduced to two odourless cups of nutrient-rich topsoil. If youd like to see what this looks like, check out the photos on my website.

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So, it appears there will be fewer pitchforks in the future of composting, but topsoil within 20 hours is a magical transformation worth waking up to. And now hallelujah! no one has to lug the compost bucket to the alley.

Jane Macdougall is a freelance writer and former National Post columnist who lives in Vancouver. She will be writing on The Bookless Club every Saturday online and in The Vancouver Sun. For more of what Janes up to, check out her website, janemacdougall.com

How green are you? Whats your eco-warrior badge of honour? Do you compost?

Send your answers by email text, not an attachment, in 100 words or less, along with your full name to Jane at thebooklessclub@gmail.com. We will print some next week in this space.

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Was/is motherhood everything you expected? Did you have to tailor your parenting style to suit the expectations of others? Is it harder to be a mom today than it used to be?

I often think of my grandmother and the roles she managed so well. She didnt have the options that I did, but I think she could have been a CEO if she had wanted. She had all of the qualities required to excel in that role, but instead, she excelled in running a home, raising her children and contributing to her community. I run all day and feel like Im never in the right place. Everything but my work gets short-changed, but only because I could lose that job if I didnt exceed expectations. I often wonder if being spread this thin was the goal we women were after.

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Name withheld

Today, parents who have pre-school children (up to four years old), usually have their children in full-time daycare. That is, they drop them off at 7 a.m., pick them up at 5:30 p.m., leaving two hours to get them dinner, bathed and to bed by 7:30. Compare this to parents (usually it was mothers) who do the childcare work without even a coffee break, or any kudos, benefits, holiday pay, job security, etc. Whose job is harder? Hats off and respect to any parent who does this most difficult job. They deserve much more recognition.

Rita Hagman

If truth be told, I couldnt do half of the stuff my wife does. She has managed a wider portfolio of concerns and responsibilities than I ever did. I watch my daughters juggling all of their adult responsibilities, but I dont comment. Their generation seems to think that kids will raise themselves and society will be just fine with the result. I wonder .

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Name withheld

My husband and I were pushed into an unexpected situation in 1963 when our first child was born. She needed major surgery at two days old. She left for VGH while we waited with surreal anticipation. She had flaming red hair (also unexpected), which had to be shaved before the operation. Thankfully, the operation was successful and we were able to bring her home on Mothers Day.

I stayed on the mother track for 20 years and thankfully was able to stay home with our three children. Now, many mothers must work, juggling finding and keeping daycare as well as all of the other responsibilities of motherhood. I feel for their load and admire how many seem to keep themselves and their families balanced and stable.

Bonnie Hamilton

Motherhood is the hardest, most thankless, self-sacrificing, draining, and wonderful job in the world. I would not trade it for the position of the CEO of the worlds richest company hands down. In the end, shaping those young lives on a day-to-day basis, as mundane as many would consider that, brings the richest rewards.

Sue Wilder

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Jane Macdougall: The Bookless Club and the anatomy of composting - Vancouver Sun