The past few years I’ve been walking green kitchen scraps to the compost pile in the hopes of improving my soil and saving the environment.

Unfortunately, the compost pile is about 80 feet from the kitchen. It takes time and I don’t enjoy making the trip in the rain, snow, and cold.

I don’t like keeping rotting waste in the house so I decided to put a pot on my patio, away from the house, for scraps. Unfortunately, windy days knocked the pot over, chipmunks jumped in the pot, and my dog rummaged through the scraps.

I decided to kill two birds with one stone by attaching the container to the dog’s fence with a bungee cord. The wind won’t blow the container over, and chipmunks and the dog can’t get to it.

Now the funny part.

Yesterday, I noticed a stream of ants climbing the wall and disappearing into our patio. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing there.

I worried the porch was in need of immediate repair because ants had made their home in rotted wood. Don’t get me wrong, the porch is due for a rebuild, but I’ve been putting that off for years.

As I contemplated how I was going to rebuild the porch I figured out the source of the problem. Ants were walking from the porch to the kitchen compost bin using the fence as a highway.

Needless to say, I’ll be moving the kitchen compost bin farther from the house tomorrow. How far remains to be seen.