St. Francis of Afece and Craptonite: Meet the Sodfather
April 7th, 2009This is a long article about an old time compost freak, nothing more, nothing less. I enjoyed it.
One problem: About making compost, the article says, “no meat, cat, dog or human poop.” Please see The Humanure Handbook for clarification on this. You can compost that stuff, no problem, if you know the rules. If you don’t know the rules, yeah, keep that shit out of your pile.
I just put out a batch of compost that contained a bunch of beef bones that Becky had previously boiled up in her stockpot, as well as as some blood from our last heifer slaughter. I wanted to see if the bones would succumb to the ravages of my new barrel-based compost system. The bones didn’t disappear, but they broke up into dust with ease. These would be the biggest no-way-would-those-break-down type of bones. Corn cobs? Nope. Not really. They were still…corn cobs. I’ll have to write about this in more detail in Farmlet.
Via: Arthur:
“That’s the powder that makes you prouder and prouder,” he says, bringing up a handful of rich humus. He lets it run through his fingers and sings a verse from Creedence’s “Proud Mary:” “Big wheel keeps on turnin’/ Proud Mary keeps on burnin’.” He smiles. “See, it’s burning with the fire of life. I call it yea-palm instead of napalm. Rather than burn people to death it brings ‘em more alive. This stuff here, the raw material?” he comes up with another handful of the same fine black soil. “I call that craptonite. Craptonite does to the forces of evil what kryptonite does to Superman.
…
“I had a vision in early ‘73—I was right over there,” he points through the trees to a spot a hundred yards or so from where we’re sitting. “All of a sudden it dawned on me that that this was something that could change the whole world. People could create their own well-being, their own good health, happiness, have peace on earth, just by using organic material, turning it into a game or a competition or whatever to get everyone excited and involved. Something that could really work.”
Research Credit: ltcolonelnemo
Kevin–I don’t know if this is useful information or not, but there’s a really great TED presentation about creating cleaner sources of cooking fuel for impoverished populations–and one of the more effective solutions ends up being a simple process to convert corn cobs into charcoal.
Maybe instead of composting, you might be able to turn those corn cobs into an alternative, back up heating/cooking fuel source? http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/amy_smith_shares_simple_lifesaving_design.html
@Seattle Shortbus
Nice idea. You can also use the charcoal as a soil amendment – see Terra Preta do Indio.
@Kevin
Corn cobs can also use be used as a mushroom substrate. Also, many types of mushrooms grow on and breakdown feces and their related pathogens — that might be another option to add into your humanure compost to speed things along.
Kevin, I really like this article. And also, thanks for the link to “Farmlet”. I didn’t about that blog. Another great job, and an excellent ‘balance’ to Cryptogon.
PS: I hope you leg is healing up well.