Growing up, we always had a garden and fruit trees that speckled our backyard. Each spring my dad would rototill the soil to prepare for planting, and throughout the snowless months, both of my parents would churn the large compost heap we had. I remember being fascinated by the mound — that it was hot in the center, that an apple turned into soil and that it forever fluctuated in size. It was like lungs — expanding and compressing dependent upon where it was in the decomposition cycle. My childhood in Spokane, Wash.
