Three composters later,

Pete claims we haven't yet harvested usable compost, although it's 5 years, 3 composters, and pounds and pounds of organic trash stashed under our kitchen sink later.

Turns out, he's partially right. Composting can be very easy -- you can cold compost, which involves a minimum of effort. You basically dump your organic waste in a designated area (which has light and rain) and come back many months later to find composted material. There's no temperature-taking, no balancing of green and brown waste, no plunging your hands into the center of the mess to stir things up. That's how I started, and it's a slow process.

A really slow process.

And sometimes squirrels chew on the bin (especially if you dump in only green waste and forget to cover it with brown).

So I went and did the only thing a lazy composter could do -- I purchased another bin. A much more expensive bin. (I went about it in a smart way, though, showing the experience of a long-married woman: I convinced Pete to buy it for me for Mother's Day. He felt -- well, if not good about it, at least he felt in control of the purchase -- and I excitedly began reading about tumbler composting.)