Sunchips bag: Week 1, and an unexpected trip to Wildcare

So the supposedly 100% compostable Sunchips bag has been in the compost for a week.  I turned the compost today, which became more elaborate than I intended, since I ended up screening some finished compost to make space, and combined two half piles into one big pile.

The verdict after one week:

No change.  

It's dirty, for sure, and created kind of a gross anerobic patch right above itself since it's still an impermeable layer.  If you look closely, there are two holes in it, but that's just where I caught it with the pitchfork as I was turning the pile.

The chip bag itself is incredibly noisy, super-scrunchly, which made it easier to locate.

Since for some reason, I really, really want the bag to break down completely as depicted on the package, I made a big production of placing it in the center of what is now a perfect compost pile, nicely-layered.  Ready to cook.

Like this:

Interestingly there were a lot of pine needles and big dry patches in the compost toward the bottom, probably from when Joe was up on the roof a few weeks ago to clean the skylights and cleared the gutters.  And as I was pitching forks-ful of that stuff over into the new pile, lo and behold, I found a tiny little adorable baby vole:

 We are not fans of voles generally, since they're pretty destructive.  But this one was just a baby, so I tucked him into a little spare cage (kept for just this eventuality!) and drove him down to WildCare. Where he became Patient #0733.  When I left, those good people at WildCare were re-hydrating him.  Nice!

While there, picked up the super-cool Laws Pocket Guide, and now know that this gorgeous visitor to our flowers this morning is an Anise Swallowtail.  Oh, what an amazing, beautiful, diverse and exciting place we live in!