I read once that farmers are glorified manure shovelers. In many ways that is true. When you are growing food making sure you have enough fertility in your soil is always a concern. We have made a practice of saving every kitchen scrap and piece of organic matter to put back on our fields and orchard to keep up fertility of the soil. The chickens do their part too. It is always a joy to watch life spring from decaying matter. Wendell Berry said it best in a poem about farmers and manure, “ to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.”
