Henric smiled a little at Candice reply on his crate."Thanks...greatly appreciated and I find your crate looks okay too." See,it pays to compliment your classmate for once instead of critic on their work every chance you get.Hmph. Anyway, time to move on with the next stage of the activity. They needed to choose moist and dry materials for their composting."I choose you...melon husk and dead leaves,"he muttered. He then put them on the side so he would put them in each of the buckets later.

Henric noticed Candice grabbed a handful of straws from the front and dumped them into her crate.Why did she need so many? *shrugs* He wondered if she could spare a few for him. Besides, this lesson was all about 'save the environment' movement kind of Herbology class, wasn't it? Conserving resources and promoting greenery stuff were part of the theme,right?

"Yo Candice, you don't mind if I take some of your straws right?"he asked and added,"You know since we need to reuse and recycle waste material and all,"he smiled and made grabby hands into her crate.


"Cow poop.The rest looks...bleghh.." He answered her as his face contorted at the sight. He preferred to use the most common one out of all the manures available. He had seen chicken poop before and it was disgusting. So NOPE to that. His eyes widened in surprise at Candice excited voice when she picked up Knarl's manure with her gloved hands. Henric couldn't help but laugh,"Yeah,I can see that! I didn't know you get overjoyed with poop on your hands!" Again he wished he got his camera phone with him so he could take a picture of her right now! Hahaa!

Look okay? Her crate look AWESOME! Well, the truth is their crate looked the same. Same crate. Same amount of soil in it. But in her eyes, her crate still look better. OH! He choose melon husk and dead leaves? That's interesting choices.

He wanted her straws? Roll eyes. "You just too lazy to grab one yourself, aren't you?" Well, she already had enough straws so she didn't need anymore straws and there's still some leftover on her table. "You can have them." She didn't mind. Its just straws.

But cow poop was HUGE tho! But at least its not as disgusting as chicken poop. Yuck! She wonder was there anyone brave enough to use chicken poop? So what if she's overjoyed with poop on her gloved hands? "Never see a girl overjoyed with poop before, Nicolei?" Brows. She put the knarl poop to the bucket number 1. There. Poop, check!

Okaaaaay. Moving on.

She still need moist and dry material. The Professor said they could have till five materials. She's going for five. First she need to choose which of the moist material she's going to use. Hmmm...She's not going to touch the moldy cake. Nope. She didn't even eat cake. So she's not going to let the plat eat that either. Cake was not good for your health. So the Gryffindor choose Orange peels and Orange pulps. And she put her moist material to bucket number 2 and 3. Bucket #2 for Orange peels and bucket #3 for orange pulps.

Last but not least, dry materials. "Coffee grounds and tea bags you're coming with me!" She grabbed some of those dry material and put them in the buckets. Different buckets of course. Bucket number 4 for tea bags and bucket number 5 for coffee grounds. There. Done. She already has all the materials she wanted to make her very own compost. She wondered how the Hufflepuff doing with his dry and moist materials?

Jet decided to have a plan in mind before starting to work hands on; it always made more sense to work that way.

She didn't plan on planting flowers or fruits, but she wanted to use knarl manure this time for she had never worked with this type before. Maybe she would plant some fruit just for the sake of it. One could never have enough fruit anyway.

Speaking of fruits, her choice for the moist material would definitely be plant-based. She firmly believed nature took whatever came from itself better than anything man-made. Apple cores and melon rinds sounded perfect.

The same theory was applied to the dry materials, and Jet mentally picked leaves because they sounded just right in her mind.

When she was ready, Jet went over to get some twigs to put in her crate. Once she was happy with how the twigs were lying, she got up and headed over to retrieve the rest of the materials she was going to use. The professor had said one material per bucket, so Jet did just that. She got four little buckets from the back of the room and carried them over to where the 'ingredients' where.

In the first bucket she put the leaves. Since she chose no wear no gloves, she had a particular order to follow in order not to 'stain' the materials. Once the little bucket was filled with leaves, she moved onto the moist materials and filled one bucket with melon rinds and another one with apple cores. Last but not least - this was the one Jet was most excited about - knarl manure.

The Slytherin placed the other buckets near her crate before she went back to the manure area and she studied it for a few moments. Since Jet didn't know how fresh the manure was, she decided it was better for her to wear gloves this time. Not ideal, in her opinion - it hindered her direct connection to the earth -, but what could she do? So after putting her gloves on, she scooped some of the knarl manure and filled her fourth little bucket.

Myers was totally batty, but it was kind of entertaining to watch him talk on and on about poop, essentially. One manure, one dry material, one wet material. Easy enough, really, as was the straw she was going to put on top of the soil - and when they were allowed to do so, Soph gathered her straw for that purpose, grabbing a nice healthy handful, and sprinkled it throughout her crate so it evenly coated the surface.

She did NOT want to use chicken manure, she realized as Myers talked about it... and... cow manure made her think of and miss Tobes, so that was out of the question... Abraxans also weirdly made her think of Tobes, so... Knarl manure it was. It was the only proper option that she could bear. Knarls were cute anyway - she didn't mind handling their droppings.

After putting on her dragonhide gloves, Soph hurried to the back of the room to collect her three buckets - she didn't want to do five, only three things to keep it simple - and first she gathered the Knarl manure in a healthy amount in one bucket, unfazed by the task she was doing. When she got to the moist materials, Soph gave each and every material a good, long consideration. She liked... the potato peels, so she gathered those and put them inside her next empty bucket. As for the dry materials, Soph ended up staring at this one for a shorter amount of time, eventually impulsively just picking the pine needles to add to her final bucket. Easy peasy.

Returning to her tabletop, Soph set down her three buckets and peeked over at Rooney's buckets. And... HE HAD chosen to do five buckets. Maybe... maybe she needed to go back for two more? If that's what the other people were doing, then maybe the MORE THE MERRIER. Or... maybe, at the very least, if she got two more, she'd have more options to choose from if she decided to use less. Yes. That was a much better idea.

Leaving her three buckets back with Rooney, Soph rushed to the back of the room to collect two more buckets then lingered in front of her options for a moment. She would... try... coffee grounds in one bucket, then apple cores in the other, then returned to Rooney again, looking awfully chipper and confident this time.

All READY TO GO.

Angel looked at her work and then she realised that she had a few other things to do. Okay so now it was time to get some rotten stuff, well maybe not rotten but old stuff, she couldn't wait to pick what she wanted to put in this thing though she would not be doing this when she was older and working with plants she would get a few things sorted.

Angel got some Chicken manure, that just was weird and she hoped that she wouldn't have to use it before because now it was going to be interesting because she hoped that everything was going to go great and she would get things done.

Angel then got Apple cores for the next part of this, it was going to be crazy and she hoped that it would make the correct fertilizer for what they were going to use because weren't there different types of fertilizer.

Angel then decided that the last thing she would use would be Grass clippings, she was really looking forwards to seeing what the next thing they were going to do was and what were they using this fertilizer on, couldn't the Professor tell them please?

For the first time in his whole school career Damien was actually thankful for his school robes, thankful that they were being exposed to this freaking manure and not something he actually enjoyed wearing. Damn it all to hell, this was the literal, actual worst.

well, okay, it wasn't that bad, but this was disgusting and the look on his face showed exactly that, and he thought regular Herbo classes were unpleasant, cracking his jaw, the Gryffindor looked through the listed materials, picking and choosing based on whatever caught his eye rather than any particularly logical method.

But first, Cutting the twigs? did he put in the manure after? Damien hadn't been much paying attention during Professor's Mayer's talking and now he was standing there without a damn clue. He peeked up at the black board, trying to read through it all quickly but none of the words were sticking in his mind.

He let out a little frustrated noise, glancing back to his twigs and cutting them up carefully as he admonished himself. fudge, fudge, freaking fudge it all. Damien knew that he needed to be doing well in this class, failing would mean no job, and no job would mean living an empty, meaningless life, and living an empty meaningless life would lead him to a life of crime and desperation. HE DIDN'T HAVE IT IN HIM TO BE A COMMON CROOK, HE WASN'T MEAN ENOUGH.

Potato peels... Tea bags... Melon rinds...

He didn't need another, but he supposed the more materials the better the smell might be masked, which lead him to grab a handful of the dried flowers and placed them into a bucket, doing the same with the other three component.

Four buckets, now he just needed the stupid, bloody disgusting, merlin-forsaken Knarl Manure. BLERGH. He reached in, hands safely hidden beneath the Dragonhide gloves he wore, and grabbed a clump of the stuff, all the while, down his best not to breath through his nose.

This is so freaking gross. Damien thought before putting the clump into the bucket. He had all five, not bad, not really, the worst was yet to come, he knew that, but he would begrudgingly deal with it when it came. Taking the buckets in hand Damien wandered back to his crate and awaited further gross instruction.

Kaycee sighed. If she had a farm this would be wayyyy easier. Because, like, cows just freely roamed on farms. Probably. She didn't actually know. She didn't live near any farms.

She did live near alligators though. So. Like. Those just wandered around. Cows were practically the same thing right?

"But then my gloves are gross." True story.

And then the Professor moved over to Dot. Kaycee followed behind. Mostly because she brought it to his attention AND she had an idea.

"I bet she'd feel better if you handled both of our poop stuff." she whispered. "Don't worry. I won't tell the other kids you're playing favorites. I'll say I have an allergy." It was worth a try, right? And who knew. She could VERY well have an allergy.

With the hope of planting either some flowers or fruit in the future, Sophie lingered only for a moment before deciding which manure to use. Knarl, of course. She didn't have to think about it really, fruit was awesome. She did consider for a moment which wet and dry materials she would use to go inside her compost, though. Walking the knarl manure back to her station, she thought about what she would chose.

Now to grab those materials... Coffee grinds was a must of course, simply for the fact that she enjoyed coffee and she figured her compost would too! Now for the wet...hmm... she hadn't seen anybody using any orange pulp yet, so she grabbed a little bit of that. Not liking the idea of having 5 ingredients- she didn't like odd numbers, she decided to add some apple cores for the fun of it. Her arms full of cores, pulp and grounds, Sophie made her way back to her compost with a smile upon her face.

Paul just...smirked a little at Kaycee and Dot…”I cannot do that! I promise in the long run--one day--you will LOOK BACK at this day say, ‘Jee, I am so glad Professor Myers made us pick up that manure that one time--’ I SWEAR IT!” He winked, as if he were giving them some huge treat, and glanced around at everyone’s work so far...they all looked about ready to move on, yes?

“ALL RIGHT--time to move on!” He clapped his hands together and smiled. “Now--to start composting--we have to do it layers. You can’t just---ADD THINGS--” he swung his arms around, “In whatever order you want! There’s a precision that must be done.” Some Herbologists would argue with Paul over this...but the man liked following a code, pattern, or set of standards. It made things neater and have...more reliable results in the long run.

“You pretty much...just have to layer between moist...and dry for a few times...you can have as many layers as you want, as much as you grabbed and put in your buckets. Once you finish adding in all of your layers--you get to add the BEST part--the MANURE!” he BEAMED. “Now--you have to keep your compost MOIST--but now...soaking wet. Throughout the process. You have to add a litttttttle bit of water every few layers--usually three or so layers--and then once more on top of the manure.” Pause. Paul glanced around...was anyone confused? Did anyone have any questions? “You may use magic, with your wand, OR I have watering cans to sprinkle some water into your composts.” He gestured in the back where there was a row of sad-looking, empty watering cans.

Paul had always preferred watering his plants by hand..he had no idea why...it just felt more...nurturing to him. But that was just HIS preference. He certainly wouldn’t force other people to do things his way.

“After you’ve put your manure on top--you’re pretty much done!” See, wasn’t it easy? Maybe he held their hand a bit..but...that was okay? “After you’ve done all of that--I’d like you, on the little cards I have placed in front of you--” he was currently walking around doing this, smudging some of the dirt from his gloves onto a few of the cards, “Your name and the materials you’ve used. Compost is not made in one day. It takes...days, weeks sometimes...for it to be ready to use. What I’d like to do is eventually...let you all use the compost and plant something. Possibly for homework..who knows!” he grinned. “And after you write all of those things, I’d like you note...do you have more carbon materials, or nitrogen?” Hmm? “I think it will be..important for pattern reasons to know…”

At least he thought so.

“All right so...let’s go! Layer! Manure! Sprinkle water throughout! Label your card accordingly!” He clapped his hands and signaled for them to start. “Oh! And feel free to help each other and chatter--just not TOO much, please--” he smiled and looked down at his crate of soil...hmm.

Where to start?

OOC: All right, so, for this part of the class, I would like three posts. You need these components:

-Layering the materials (dry/moist/dry/moist etc)
-Sprinkling water throughout that process
-Adding the manure on top of those layers
-Doing the card that includes: Name, materials used, and which is more present--carbon or nitrogen? in your compost

I do not care how you all separate these activities into three posts, but I think all of this requires at least that many for credit. Remember, your character can make mistakes and not get things right...so don’t feel like everything has to be perfect! <3

I will be ending this activity(and soon after, the class) on Sunday, 12 PM CT ( 6 PM GMT )

Also, super side note, but it's not too late to catch up ^__^

So much information, Sophie's eyes kept darting back to the board to ensure she would be able to remember it all. This would definitely be something to write down for later.

Okay, so she had two wets, one dry...and she had to layer it all. And manure went on top? Or did you have to layer that too? No, it went on top. Yes. Plus she had to keep it moist, but not too moist.

Finally Sophie pulled her gloves on, they were getting down to the dirty part. Taking some of her orange pulp, she spread it in an light, even layer. Next, she followed up with a layer of coffee grounds, and soon after she was layering apple cores. She followed up with a sprinkle of water. "Aguamenti!" She murmered as water sprung from her wand. Sophie glanced around the room to see if their's looked similar. Shrugging her shoulders, she continued to layer. She was following instructions, of course she was doing it right.

More than being disgusted, Dot was really embarrassed. She'd managed to get her gloves off and cleaned, and the scarf pulled from around her face so she could take gulps of fresh(ish) air, but people were looking at her.

Judging her. She hated that.

"I'm fine, sir, thank you," Dot cast a look at the professor before pulling her gloves back on. She was blushing, a deep red that matched her hair and went from her collar to the tips of her ear, and she could feel the heat radiating off her face.

Ugh. "I'm just... rubbish at handling rubbish." She offered a weak smile. "And at Herbology. I probably have a black thumb." Dot offered Kaycee a weak smile as well, and then she looked at her crate. She could do this. She could make this crate of garbage into something usable and wonderful for a plant, even if she personally found it sort of gross.

Just... layers, right? Orange peels in first, and she didn't mind touching those, and then a layer of coffee grounds. Another layer of each, and then she needed water. Only... hm. Dot didn't want to touch her wand with her dirty hands, so that left the watering can.

Annnnd they were moving on!

Adi listened to Myers talk about the composting process. Gosh! It was easy to see that the man was passionate about all things Herbology. Hehe. Such an enthusiastic Professor he was. And he seemed to have a thing for manure. LOL! Anyway... more notes were made by the Hufflepuff before he pulled on his gloves again to get to work.

Adi got started with the moist materials since the first bucket he grabbed contained the apple peels. A nice, healthy layer of that went into his crate followed by a layer of ground coffee. Then it was back to the moist material- the orange peels this time. That made layer number three! Now for the fourth layer (yep, Adi had decided four layers were enough). The pine needles were added.

All done with that part since all his materials were used up.

Okay! Time to get started!

Paulina looked at all the materials on the table in front of her and felt that she had almost everything that she needed. Only thing missing was a watering can because she - like Professor Myers - preferred the personal touch over magic.

Grabbing a watering can, she filled it with water before heading back to her workstation. Setting it down on the table, Paulina got to work adding the moist and dry materials to her compost. This task was quite easy since she had done it before. She looked over to see how Adi was doing before shooting him a thumbs up with her dirty gloved hand.

Getting filthy was part of the territory.

After the third layer was added, Paulina sprinkled some water over it. She would be done with this activity in no time. Shame, because she didn't want the class to end. The smell of manure didn't bother her anymore since she was used to it, so she was probably doing better than quite a few of her fellow classmates.

Time to move on. Brooklyn had been waiting for those words. Definitely not all that ridiculous stuff about looking back and being glad they were made to handle manure, though. And that wasn’t even over yet, since she still had to actually use the bit she’d gathered in the bucket she was still staying as far away from as possible. She still had her sweater pulled up over her nose, too. That wasn’t changing until she knew it was absolutely safe. Probably not until class was over at this point.

She went over to get a watering can before she did anything else, after they’d been left to follow the next few steps. More stalling when it came to dealing with the manure. Of course they couldn’t have been lucky enough to have that as the bottom layer. It just had to be the top layer, but it meant it would be easier to stall dealing with that bucket. After she filed the watering can, she brought it back to her crate and buckets, looking at them again to decide what she’d use first. Tea bags. Yep. That would be the first layer, considering they’d been told to alternate. She spread out the tea bags over her twigs in the crate, before pulling the other two non-manure buckets over to her.

A layer of orange peels went on top of the tea bags, followed by a layer of flowers. She still didn’t know if it would make her compost smell any better, but she had to layer. And she had to alternate, which meant that was how she had to use her materials. She’d sprinkled water over the layers after that, taking her time. She was going to take as long as she could before using that last bucket at her station.

It was time to move on. Hady was more then ready to continue onto the next steps carefully listening to everything Professor Myers was saying so she'd know how to do things when she had to.

As soon as she was able she made her way over towards the watering cans and choose one for herself, filling it with some water and then returning to her desk. Right now she wasn't going to use her wand and get everything all dirty when she had a prefectly capable watering can.

Okay so the instructions called for a moist layer then dry layer alternating until she had nothing left. That part was easy enough. Pulling her bucket with the soil and twigs inside closer she checked over the materials she had chosen. For her first layer she went with the old bread spreading it evenly across the twigs then a dry layer was next leaves. Spreading the leaves out nicely she only had two materials left.

In went her last moist material which happened to be the orange pulp. Using her hand she once more made sure that it was spread out even before adding the last thing she had. Her coffee beans. Bye bye coffee. Hady added those on top smoothing the beans out.

When they were given the go ahead, Jet knelt down beside her crate and placed her buckets strategically near her. She started with some apple cores as the first layer, then immediately put a layer leaves over them and melon rinds came next.

She did it all quickly and flawlessly, as she had already done that before quite a few times. Every three layers she made sure to add some water from her wand to keep the mixture as moist as it should be for now. Jet wouldn't say she was a perfectionist, but the professor seemed to require precision and she was doing just that: being precise.

There were lots of words, and Zeke found it difficult to really pay attention. Really though, how hard could this composting thing be? It was just stuff, put together... apparently not all WILLY NILLY... instead it was LAYERED.

There were LAYERS of stuff, and they were WET and then there was the MANURE.

Easy.

Too easy.

Was this their whole lesson? He was going to ace it.

Getting started, Zeke placed down his twigs first, because... that's what they were supposed to do, right? And then followed that up by sprinkling a layer of grass in his crate first. There. Soil. Twigs. Grass. And then with his next layer, which was coffee grounds, and then the next layer of mouldy cake - this one he was particularly pained to sprinkle. Of course, his sprinkling perhaps wasn't the best. Cake was lumpy and uneven and so there were areas where it was higher than others, but he tried.

Now.

Water? He needed water, right?

Zeke cast aguamenti, ending its flow once he had a generous drizzle across every inch of his compost. There were still more layers to come, so hitching up his gloves, he considered his next moves. Should he mix it up further? Or continue with the same layer pattern?

Jet emptied all three buckets that previously contained the apple cores, melon rinds and leaves, layering them and watering the layers as she should.

The most exciting part was about to start as she piled the three empty buckets by the side and pulled the one with the manure closer to her. Knarl manure, the kind she had never worked with before. She was curious to study the compost after it was all ready. Good for flowers and fruits...

Carefully, Jet scooped a handful of manure and added it to the top of everything that was in her crate. She did this until the fourth bucket was completely empty as well, then place it on top of the other three empty ones by her side.

At the moment he had finished making the layers in the crate, Adi looked up to see Polly flashing him a thumbs up. Awwh, had she been watching to ensure he had done everything correctly? So nice of her! He returned the thumbs up with a grin of appreciation before turning his attention to the task at hand.

Right. So, two of his four layers had a tiny amount water added by a watering can earlier (he had used a watering can for this since both Polly and Myers- his Herbology idols hehe- preferred to use that). Which were the layers that had been wet? The very first layer and the second to last one.

But now came the manure! Wrinkling his nose and holding his breath again, the Hufflepuff scooped the thing up with his gloved had carefully dumped it onto the topmost layer. Now for more water! Adi tilted the can and allowed just a trickle of water to escape.

That part of the activity was complete now. Woot!

In the end he decided to mix it up a little. So the next layer to go on was a handful of coffee grounds, sprinkled all around. He didn't mind coffee grounds, they weren't gross, it was just a thing, and grass clippings were fine too, so that went on next again... and lastly... CAKE! mouldy cake though, which he had to admit, was icky.

With the next layer on, he sprinkled it again with water. FILTER!!!! Filter through! Be moist! Decompose and mingle and mix and stuff!

Zeke stemmed the flow of water from his wand, holstering it while he continued to work.

Peering into his pockets, he figured he only had one more layer left in it.

Now for the final bit- writing up that card which Myers had graciously smeared with a bit of dirt. Oh well. A nonverbal cast of the Scouring Charm could fix that. With card now as good as new, Adi removed his gloves, grabbed a quill then set off writing the necessary information:



Yep, he had selected mostly Nitrogen filled materials.

Woops?

Hopefully that wouldn't be a problem. Anywho, the Hufflepuff was all done. He proceeded to clean off his gloves, his part of the table he was using (since others were still working on their compost) and the buckets he had used. Couldn't leave Myers's beloved Greenhouse dirty, could he?

Seeing the thumbs up, Paulina smiled.

It was nice to see that Adi was doing so well. Since he had asked her for help she had the feeling that Herbology wasn't his best subject. Maybe Benny could help him out too. The subject wasn't that hard; you just needed to be able to understand plants and how to care for them. Of course there were other things involved, but that was a big part of it.

Paulina kept layering her materials alternating between dry and wet.

Every few layers she sprinkled some water to keep the compost moist. There wasn't much left in her buckets, so that meant she was almost at the part where the manure was to be added. Most people would find placing it gross because it involved using your hands, but that was what gloves were for and you got used to it while gardening.

When the buckets of dry and moist materials were empty she moved them aside and slid the one containing manure closer to her.

Was Herbology a necessity for someone to become Minister for Magic? Because Rooney had no intention to try excel in a subject taught by someone that he found constricting and unable to allow the expression of admiration in its full force. He listened to Professor Myers though, and took in only the important instructions given to them. Blah blah blah. Dry, then moist, then dry, then moist and sprinkling water throughout and then manure.

This was already boring.

Rooney looked at the five of his buckets that he had and then took a peek at the five buckets that Miss Sophie Brown had. He thought she had chosen well to add two buckets to her original three. He bet that she was still not going to use them all, though. But he also knew that the Head Girl was smart enough to know exactly what was the best decision for her compost right now. The second year didn’t trust himself to use his wand to water his compost when he was in such a foul mood, and so he collected a watering can and took it back to the workstation he was sharing with his absolute favourite older Ravenclaw.

He added a few handfuls of the grass clippings above the straw he had put on earlier, and then allowed his compost some water from the can. Only a little bit and he watched it sit on the grass and follow the lines down onto the straw. Interesting what gravity did, right?

That was one of his dry materials. Moist next? Yeah.

Orange pulp or apple cores, though?

Carefully Paulina emptied the bucket of Knarl manure on top of her compost. With her gloved hand she spread it out so that there was equal coverage across the top. She was rather pleased with how her work was turning out, and the only thing left to do now was add some more water.

Picking up the watering can, she gave the manure the exact amount that it needed.

Her compost was done! Well... not really as it would take days for it to be ready to use, but still. She was done all she could do for the moment and that was rather exciting. Too bad she couldn't make more compost though.


Taking off her gloves, Paulina gave them a good cleaning before setting about making the card for her compost:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Card

Name: Paulina Holiday
Materials used:

• Manure - Knarl (nitrogen)
• Dry - Tea bags (carbon) and grass clippings (nitrogen)
• Moist - Apple cores (nitrogen) and potato peels (nitrogen)

Composition: Mostly nitrogen

That done, Paulina began cleaning up her work area.

Jet had now reached the last and least interesting step. She got the card professor Myers had placed in front of her and pulled out a quill.

Quote:

Jet Wolford

Materials: Apple cores, melon rinds, leaves, knarl manure and water.

More materials high in nitrogen.

The Slytherin put her quill away and placed the card with her crate.