The compost sure does slow down when the temperature falls. However, there are a couple of things you can do to move things along:

• You can insulate the compost with bales of straw on all sides, to hold in heat.
• Adequate nitrogen is essential for hot compost. I use alfalfa pellets, but you could use the end of a bag of lawn fertilizer - both require a bit of water to make the nitrogen available to microbes.

Given that you live in such a rural county, however, I wonder about the wisdom of composting food waste. I live in the heart of the Willamette Valley and have to armor my compost against raccoons, opossums, other rodents, neighborhood dogs ... If you're composting in an open pile, you'll definitely become a wildlife feeding station.

Wet or dry - your compost pile must be kept covered. In the winter, covering keeps the compost from becoming saturated. In the summer, covering retains sufficient moisture to permit the composting process to proceed. 

I have some best practices for food waste composting that might be of value to you:

• Never put food scraps in direct contact with soil.
• Never have food as the top layer of the compost pile.
• Layer in absorbent carbon sources – deciduous leaves, shredded paper, straw.
• Compost containing 20% or more food scraps must be composted aerobically in a hot, active pile.
• Turn the whole pile when you add food scraps.
• Turn frequently.

For you I will also advise - if your water supply and watering system permit it - that you add your compost to a drip irrigation system, or otherwise make it easy to add water during the dry season.

Thank you so much for your complete answer. I will take your email to my office team and think about how we can insulate and feed our compost through the year.

Well, you know, Steph Brewer:

Back in the 1960's somebody in Texas wrote a geneology of 5 families who entered N America via Maryland in the 1640's I think. This was his history master's thesis.

I found it just now in Google Books. I have an original print copy handed down by my mother, who communicated with O'Rourke for years, providing information on my father's family - the Brewers.

O'Rourke traced the families and their movements from Maryland. At least my Brewers (who came as indentured servants, BTW) traveled with Daniel Boone through the Appalachians to Kentucky-ish. There was a lot of doings in Illinois, and my grandfather (born 1865) farmed on the Mississippi R. bottoms on the Missouri side, just south of St. Louis MO.

I grew up in St. Louis MO, but it's only a couple hundred miles from there to St. Joseph MO, which was one jumping off point for the Oregon Trail. All of which is to say that we are likely some degree of relationship.

Nice to meet you cousin! :)

Linda B