My April update had turned into my May update… such is my
life these days in the slow lane! With most things lately, parenting a newborn
baby has meant slowing way down in the productivity department. I sympathize
with this momma tortoise, because that is about where I am at, moving at the
speed of molasses with a needy little one in tow. To be fair, I had mentally
scheduled us a few months of “get absolutely nothing done on the homestead”
after the birth, so I am pleasantly surprised that we are accomplishing just a
little more than expected.
It has helped to have an absolutely fabulous little baby to
care for, who is generally good tempered
and a good sleeper. As soon as she goes down for a nap, I stealthily tip toe
away and furiously set to getting chores and assorted to-dos done in the
unknown window of time before I hear her little groggy cry calling for me.
Another god-send has been the handwoven baby-wearing wrap that talented weaver
Connie Westbrook made for us. Several times a day, Caris consents to being stuffed into the
folds of cloth hugging her to our chests, where she dutifully passes out while
being jostled around in the course of eating, doing dishes, taking walks,
talking with friends, working in the garden or the like. Each day, all planning
goes out the window and we don’t quite know what to expect, thereby being
pleasantly surprised when we stay on top of more that we thought possible.
Much of our new role as parents seems to revolve around
tending our baby’s needed inputs and outputs. Breastmilk in (requiring very
little effort on my part) and a mustardy yellow poop out. I don’t think I had
ever given poop very much thought in my life, but lately it has been featuring
prominently in my days... And nights for that matter. Because I am now the
adoring servant of a 2 month old, I don’t resent this new proximity to her
poop. Rather, I have accepted it as part of the package of parenthood, as has
Mike, who swaps out with me tackling her excretions.
Since we have been getting so many inquiries about what we
are doing for diapers and such, here goes an explanation…. Thus far, we have opted to use various
hand-me-down cloth diapers from friends, being the eco-thrifty people we are.
While it is tempting to save ourselves the trouble of washing diapers, the
thought of what the total pile of dirty disposable diapers would look like if
it was sitting on the floor of our house was too overwhelming (diapers make up
somewhere between 2-5% of landfill waste… yuck.) There are some cool hybrids on
the market now—biodegradable “Tushies” or flushable insert + cloth cover “G
diapers”—but they aren’t cheap, thus every few days we pull out the scrub brush
and washboard and clean cloth diapers the old-fashioned way. Total cost= $0. Total
time it takes= 1 hour every other day. Is this trade off worth it? To us, for now, yes. I thought I would dislike the task of diaper washing, but
it has become much like washing dishes… a mildly off-putting yet strangely
meditative task once you get into it. The sun and clothesline help bleach out
stains and disinfect before the diapers repeat their thankless duty.
Our daughter’s poop is only one stop on the poop tour of our
homestead, lucky you! The next stop is our composting toilet. This might be the
most off-putting feature in our unconventional home. Because we don’t have a
flush toilet and septic tank, and also because we figure we can put the poop to
better use than hibernating underground until pump-out time, we have opted for
a “humanure” system. It is pretty simple—do your business in a dressed-up
bucket, cover with sawdust, and then empty once a week into a specially
designated compost pile to decompose. (This is the low-tech version of a
composting toilet. There are many companies that make fancier versions
requiring less hauling). Does it smell? If using the right amount of sawdust, I
will say not really… After emptying
the bucket, we will wait several years for our humanure pile to heat up and
decompose to the point where all pathogens are killed before using it around our
fruit trees. I do know people who use it in their gardens, but I personally would
rather not risk the direct contact with produce. We instead opt to put other animal’s decomposed poop on our
garden beds! (We were very excited to receive a recent load of finished horse
compost for our garden.)
If the thought of
humanure makes you a bit grossed out, let me point out that first, it is a very
old and venerable practice. Traditionally, in China, farmers would put
outhouses on the edge of their fields so that those passing by would leave
their contribution to the farmer’s field’s fertility. Second, humanure is an
industrial-scale modern-day practice in the US! If you live in a city or suburb
and you have ever wondered what happens to your poop after you flush it down
the toilet this is it--cities treat sewage until it is safe to apply
agriculturally and then sell it to various rural localities and fertilizer
companies. Each city has a different brand name for their fertilizer. For
example, from Minnesota you can buy the twin cities’ municipal solid waste
under the name “Minnegrow 5-4-0” from your garden supply center. The only
cringe-worthy part of the whole operation really is the increasing amount of
pharmaceuticals and antibiotics that get passed from toilets back into the
soil and from there into streams and rivers. That is cause for concern. If you,
like me, find this topic strangely fascinating, I recommend listening more
about it from the archived Radiolab broadcast, “Poop Train” at- www.radiolab.org/story/poop-train
. Also check out The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins to learn more about
composting your poop. But all this is to say, I like knowing the source
contributors of our soil’s fertilizer and keeping them very local!
The next stop on the poop tour is our outhouse, situated in
the hugel-swales of our orchard. We
designed our outhouse so that it was light enough for two of us to lift and
move from location to location as holes filed up. The screened-in sides keep
things nicely ventilated and flies out so that one can have a scenic and not
too stinky depositing experience. As the shallow holes fill with manure and
sawdust we bump the outhouse down the row of trees, leaving little fertility
pockets along the swales. Each outhouse in our community has its own clever
name and slightly different system. For example, our neighbors use their “Saloon,”
(emphasis on “loo,” thus named for its swinging doors.) Down the road is the
“Phu Ping Palace,” (pronounced, you guessed it, “poo-ping,” named after a fancy
skyscraper in Bangkok.) Ours is called “Poo with a View” for its scenic outlook
over our homestead.
Well, if I haven’t grossed you out too much yet, for the
last stop on the poo tour is over the creek at the neighboring homestead. Our
neighbor Brian just finished building a brick and cob oven in their outdoor
kitchen and has been firing it up for baking bread and pizza. The secret
ingredient in the exterior plaster? Their cow’s poop of course! Animal manure
is used around the world as a strengthener in clay plaster and earthen floors.
Perhaps because its fine fibers or enzymes, it seems to add extra strength
without the stink you might expect. The only reason it isn’t in our house’s
plasters is that we don’t have a ready supply to manure the way our neighbors
do with their cows, Crème Brule and May Apple. At any rate, the results are
delicious and hopefully for our stomachs, long lasting!
