Possible objections, anyone want to help me come up with answers?

We have a compost heap, and we really want to use the sweepings in our own garden. The town worries that manure piles might attract flies, though. I am thinking of working out a deal with a neighbor who also composts, such that we give her our stable sweepings and she gives us compost. I might just be borrowing trouble, though. The town might well think composting it and using it on our garden is just fine (I sure hope so, I've got a large garden).

Diane, I envy you. Being biking distance of the library and the Starbucks' is getting less and less attractive the older I get.

Three weeks. I wonder how high my blood pressure can get by then? (I wonder if Jillis will have any goats left for sale by then?)

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Peace, tremulous, unexpected, sent a taproot out of nowhere into Morgon's heart. -Patricia McKillip, Harpist in the Wind

As someone else already mentioned, there is literature available on composting that tells you how to do it with no odor, no bugs, no varmints. The humanure handbook is a good source, but there are probably others for animal manure. Your local extension agency may also be able to provide you with a pamphlet to show how to do it...present that to the town meeting. If you keep it covered, you don't have a problem. And if you are willing to wait long enough, by having rotating piles, you never even have to turn it...you just layer the right ingredients, keep it covered with dry material (meaning straw, grass, hay, leaves, etc.) and make sure the moisture level is maintained so the compost doesn't die. The humanure handbook tells you how to do a two year rotating system, so you have a pile you are using to add manure, a pile you are using as compost, and a pile that is aging for the next year. It basically means you have to wait two years to start using it, but then every year you have a nice big pile of wonderful compost for your yard and gardens. I just started my first pile early this year, so will have to wait awhile, but it will be worth it...I've always hated turning compost piles and always thought that was a necessary ingredient to doing it right. Now I understand that nature does not turn it's compost and it always has a ready supply.