Out of all of my homegrown, self-sufficient, make it from
scratch, do it yourself, zero waste antics, this is the first time I’ve thought
to myself, “Holly, how in the hell did you get yourself into this?”
This thing I talk of, my friends, is a matter of my septic
facilities in the shanty, or the lack thereof more specifically. Yep, no sewage system. So what does this
mean? I am going to be using the “humanure” approach to dispose of my waste. I’ll
do my ones and twos in a 5 gallon bucket disguised as a toilet and then compost
it until it’s an organic material that can be tossed in the flower beds. Some
people say once it’s broken down and aged, it’s completely safe to use on your
garden, but, don’t worry folks, I haven’t hit that level of craycray...yet. There are
tons of books and theories on this, and I can assure you it is totally legit
and safe. It is also good for the environment - I won’t be polluting water
sources, zero carbon footprint. It’s a completely natural circle of life type of thing. I’m going to
go hug a tree now.
Last weekend I built my pot to piss in. It cost me $5 to make ($4 for a toilet seat and $1 for hardware from our ReStore and the lumber was scrap I had laying around). I based the plans off of the famous Loveable Loo.
How it works:
1. do your biz
2. cover with sawdust or peat moss
3. when bucket is full, take outside
and dump in compost pile, cover with straw/hay
4. repeat
5. when your outside compost pile is
1 year old, make a new compost pile and let the old one sit for a year to age
before using as fertilizer
6. repeat
The whole purpose of building my own small space was to
become more efficient - buy less, use less, and live as simply as possible –
all in an effort to save up to buy 100s of acres of dream property. And that’s
what I will have to keep reminding myself when I am hauling buckets of feces
out to the compost site in the middle of winter. Yay.
