mmmm, compost....
Jun. 10th, 2005 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonI just ordered another batch of Eisenia fetida vemiculture worms (fancy word for "useful squirmy things that eat garbage and poop fertilizer") from these good folks-- it's amazing how much household food waste those little buggers can consume. We screwed up over the winter, though, and didn't give the worms we had enough bedding to reproduce quickly enough, so now we need more.
And now I'm researching composting toilets, to build or buy, both for the treehouse and the yurts I'll be building here, and one up at the horse barn/paddock/camping area/future orchard/gardens. The question now is whether I can get one up at the barn/paddock before 30+ people descend on the Casa in a couple of weeks for a weekend class, in addition to the very, very full plate of projects I already have. Maybe, maybe not. Last I'd heard the class was going to be held elsewhere in July, giving me until October (the time of the next class) to work out these logistical details, but, things change. My septic's in good shape, and could likely handle a weekend of that kind of load, but why push it, and I'd really rather not bring in a chemical porta-John if I can help it (but that is the fallback plan). I could just take out the backhoe and build an old-fashioned outhouse, but they tend to smell and get rather nasty. Ah, well, I can honestly say that dealing with human waste is a damn sight better and less unpleasant than driving on the D.C. Beltway ;>
Reminds me of a time I was in California doing disaster relief for the Red Cross after one of the big regional floods they had some years ago. We were working out of an old office building in Burlingame that had been unused for some time, and apparently tree roots had grown through and blocked the sewer lines at some point. I found this out when, after a day or two of using the building, all of the, er, waste, being flushed by everyone up on the ground floor started fountaining (literally,foot-high jets) up out of the basement floor drains and shower drains. As the person in nominal charge of the operations at this particular facility, cleaning up that mess wasn't something I felt I could ethically delegate, so I sent someone out to beg, borrow or steal a wet-dry vac and started the cleanup, after calling a roto-rooter guy for an emergency service call. That set a new standard for me to use in all my future work -- it's a *good* day when you don't have to handle raw sewage. Ah-yup. Bleah.
I could go on about that particulardeathtrap facility, like the surreal, vast expanses of fungus and mushrooms growing out of the carpet under all the places where the roof had been leaking, and the ancient gas furnace that I had to go manually check hourly to make sure the many clogged gas jets hadn't caused the pilot to blow out and risk the building filling with gas and blowing us all to kingdom come. But that's another story.
Today in between writing work, I'll head out to an antique store at a nearby town to pick up some Victorian ironwork coat/towel-hooks and a straight razor they're holding for me, maybe split some wood, pick up some needed lumber down at the yard in town.
The postman just drove down instead of just dropping the stuff off in the box, because he had a package (books: The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields, and Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables From Your Garden All Year Long), and we chatted about our wooden moose on the hill, which he noticed I'd gotten back upright after its unfortunate encounter with a falling tree. I think the mailman is more concerned about that moose than I am. And he brought this week's Netflix movies -- another set of Monty Python episodes, De-Lovely, and we're still waiting on Lon Chaney's "The Unknown," a silent film about an armless knife-thrower (thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
contentlove for the recommendation). Last night lylythe_strega and I watched one of my favorite (and most obscure) movies, "Johanna d'Arc of Mongolia". A totally brilliant, clever, deliciously weird and thoroughly enjoyable Ulrike Ottinger movie I was just reminded about yesterday -- for anyone who is interested, it's only out on VHS, but I can point you to a place where you can buy a copy.
Then a local Ethiopian friend called to arrange a time this weekend to bottle the T'ej we'd brewed together a while back (traditional Ethiopian mead -- honey wine -- made with Ethiopian hops, from which you actually use the woody stems, not the leaves or flowers). I've been brewing mead and beer for many years, but this is the first time I've tried this very unusual regional style, and I'm excited about seeing how it came out. The Ethopian hops is hard to find, but my friend's friends in D.C. can get their hands on it if we want to make more.
Life is good. Sure, there are ups and downs -- my partner twisted her ankle pretty badly yesterday and may have messed up a tendon, I've seen a couple of carpenter ants in the house, there have been a few deaths recently in and around our extended family, good-quality push mowers are more expensive than I'd like, the neocons are trying to kill public broadcasting, and some of my friends are having serious problems right now and I'm quite concerned about them and am wishing I could do more. But overall, life and beauty surround me, I feel exquisitely blessed, and am filled with bountiful joy in the present, and cautious hope for the future.
-------
The Ch'unchu speak in a funny way, different from the normal human voice. They say, "Where do you come from? At what hour would you go back? Where is your village?"
--Nazario Turpo Condori, 1999
And now I'm researching composting toilets, to build or buy, both for the treehouse and the yurts I'll be building here, and one up at the horse barn/paddock/camping area/future orchard/gardens. The question now is whether I can get one up at the barn/paddock before 30+ people descend on the Casa in a couple of weeks for a weekend class, in addition to the very, very full plate of projects I already have. Maybe, maybe not. Last I'd heard the class was going to be held elsewhere in July, giving me until October (the time of the next class) to work out these logistical details, but, things change. My septic's in good shape, and could likely handle a weekend of that kind of load, but why push it, and I'd really rather not bring in a chemical porta-John if I can help it (but that is the fallback plan). I could just take out the backhoe and build an old-fashioned outhouse, but they tend to smell and get rather nasty. Ah, well, I can honestly say that dealing with human waste is a damn sight better and less unpleasant than driving on the D.C. Beltway ;>
Reminds me of a time I was in California doing disaster relief for the Red Cross after one of the big regional floods they had some years ago. We were working out of an old office building in Burlingame that had been unused for some time, and apparently tree roots had grown through and blocked the sewer lines at some point. I found this out when, after a day or two of using the building, all of the, er, waste, being flushed by everyone up on the ground floor started fountaining (literally,foot-high jets) up out of the basement floor drains and shower drains. As the person in nominal charge of the operations at this particular facility, cleaning up that mess wasn't something I felt I could ethically delegate, so I sent someone out to beg, borrow or steal a wet-dry vac and started the cleanup, after calling a roto-rooter guy for an emergency service call. That set a new standard for me to use in all my future work -- it's a *good* day when you don't have to handle raw sewage. Ah-yup. Bleah.
I could go on about that particular
Today in between writing work, I'll head out to an antique store at a nearby town to pick up some Victorian ironwork coat/towel-hooks and a straight razor they're holding for me, maybe split some wood, pick up some needed lumber down at the yard in town.
The postman just drove down instead of just dropping the stuff off in the box, because he had a package (books: The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields, and Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables From Your Garden All Year Long), and we chatted about our wooden moose on the hill, which he noticed I'd gotten back upright after its unfortunate encounter with a falling tree. I think the mailman is more concerned about that moose than I am. And he brought this week's Netflix movies -- another set of Monty Python episodes, De-Lovely, and we're still waiting on Lon Chaney's "The Unknown," a silent film about an armless knife-thrower (thanks to
contentlove for the recommendation). Last night lylythe_strega and I watched one of my favorite (and most obscure) movies, "Johanna d'Arc of Mongolia". A totally brilliant, clever, deliciously weird and thoroughly enjoyable Ulrike Ottinger movie I was just reminded about yesterday -- for anyone who is interested, it's only out on VHS, but I can point you to a place where you can buy a copy.Then a local Ethiopian friend called to arrange a time this weekend to bottle the T'ej we'd brewed together a while back (traditional Ethiopian mead -- honey wine -- made with Ethiopian hops, from which you actually use the woody stems, not the leaves or flowers). I've been brewing mead and beer for many years, but this is the first time I've tried this very unusual regional style, and I'm excited about seeing how it came out. The Ethopian hops is hard to find, but my friend's friends in D.C. can get their hands on it if we want to make more.
Life is good. Sure, there are ups and downs -- my partner twisted her ankle pretty badly yesterday and may have messed up a tendon, I've seen a couple of carpenter ants in the house, there have been a few deaths recently in and around our extended family, good-quality push mowers are more expensive than I'd like, the neocons are trying to kill public broadcasting, and some of my friends are having serious problems right now and I'm quite concerned about them and am wishing I could do more. But overall, life and beauty surround me, I feel exquisitely blessed, and am filled with bountiful joy in the present, and cautious hope for the future.
-------
The Ch'unchu speak in a funny way, different from the normal human voice. They say, "Where do you come from? At what hour would you go back? Where is your village?"
--Nazario Turpo Condori, 1999
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 05:53 pm (UTC)And thanks for not going on and on about the raw sewage... ;>
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Date: 2005-06-14 01:31 am (UTC)BTW, the young female lead in the movie, with the kind of dusky Serbo-Croatian features, who takes up with the Mongol princess? She's almost a dead ringer for Megan (Yes, that Megan, not the one from D.C.)