Have you ever seen a guy so happy to play with his own poop? Here is Max and he's showing us his duel chamber compost toilet which happens to have one of the best views in the valley (sorry, view not shown). One of the first buildings installed on this property was this throne for more than one reason. Humanure is a concept which one should not snub their nose at. If more people started reusing their own waste instead of contaminating fresh water we would be on our way to solving many ecological problems in the first world and many deadly sanitation problems in less developed countries.
In Max's case he uses a super simple concept. His outhouse has duel 2 meter deep chambers with doors on the front. Bowl movements are flushed with a cup full of fine saw dust and once one is full he closes it up for about 6 months to let the decomposition do it's thing. After that, he shovels the mostly broken down pile of waste out the door and lets it compost in the open air for another 6 months. All that is left is simply perfectly rich soil.
None of the people I met using this system put the compost on any crops they sell to the public because of obvious fact that most people wouldn't be comfortable eating such a product. But all of them to a man say they use it on their personal gardens. Check out some other idea for composting toilets.
Mapping and knowing the contour lines of the land is one of the first steps in any design. Knowing how water flows through an area is essential knowledge. The idea is to basically slow the flow of water over the land and allow it to sink in and nourish the soil. You can do this by making ponds, digging swales along contour lines (essential permaculture knowledge), diverting water and using it to your advantage. Slow it, spread it, sink it.
Max gave us a demonstration on how to find the contour lines on land using simple instruments you can purchase cheaply or assemble yourself. A-frames are good for smaller measurements while a long clear 1 inch wide tube filled with water is good for longer lines. Find your level points and mark them off with stakes.
Goat is good! One of the biggest profit makers on a small farm are goats. Their milk is highly nutritious and great for cheeses. An experienced milker can do the job in less than 3 minutes. Most healthy goats give 2-4 litres of milk a day. The nipples first need to be cleaned followed by the utters and butt-hole. You don't want any hair or other nastiness dropping in the bucket. Next, massage the utters to get the milk flowing to the nipples. Pinch the upper nipple with the thumb and index finger and squeeze out the milk with the rest of the fingers. Or you can just look up a better explanation on how to milk a goat here.
Chickens are another wonderful addition to any property. Besides the obvious eggs and meat benefits, chickens are excellent at helping to make compost. They scratch, dig and peck around compost piles and used up garden patches while fertilizing the soil at the same time.
The simplest and most humane way to kill a chicken is simply with a cone attached to a tree. The cone method holds the chicken still and steady while the nerves are still firing after decapatiation. Shad from Atitlan Organics is an inspirational teacher and has a great video on how to harvest a chicken. Almost 300k views.
Let's get into a little bit about how animals best function in an environment.
An active decay cycle, ADC, is a good sign there is a healthy ecosystem going on. When excrement and dead animals are breaking down fast on a forest floor the soil and bacterial life is going to benefit. The opposite of that would be if a racoon were to die in a Walmart parking lot and stink in the sun for for weeks - that is not a healthy ecosystem.
Animals need space and space needs a relief from animals. If you don't give them a break from each other from time to time they will both get sick. Chickens, for example, can be a terrible stress on the land. They will first eat what they like, then they'll go down the food chain of whatever is available and are even able to change what is able to be grown in that area. If the chicken house smells bad and the land looks worn out, adding carbon to the floor and changing their outside roaming area is in order. Even their doorway paths need to be rotated. Move yards, move to fresh ecosystems or make fresh ecosystems for them.
Omnivores always follow herbivores. The bird follows the cow. The birds benefit is that it gets food in the form of bugs hanging around the cow as well as access to bugs on the grown that the cow clears. The cow, in return, gets pest control and security. The cow is tipped off when the bird senses danger.
Omnivores like chickens and pigs are active. They are ok with being dirty and their deep bedding is an active compost pile. It is constantly being turned and bombarded with nitrogen and moister and needs added carbon to keep healthy.
Herbivores like goats, cows and horses are clean and passive. Their deep bedding is dormant because it is not being turned. It's anaerobic and solid. There is no need to add water or leftovers.
This means you can put the herbivores bedding into an omnivores for further compost but not the other way around. When's the last time you saw a goat rolling around in a pig pen?
If you want to start taking care of animals don't be too intimidated by all the data you think you need to know. You will learn as you go of course but there are a few points that are pretty essential knowledge that you should get to know in this order.
- growth rate and diet
- age of maturity - when are they adults?
- heat cycle - when can they get pregnant?
- gestation - how long are they pregnant for?
- number of young
- weening age - when to separate and move babies?
- space and furniture needed
- harvest - when are they ready to eat or finish their life cycle?
Finally, understand the difference between 'breed' and 'management'. Breed sets the upper limit for production of quantity. Management set the upper limit of quality. Pick the breed that meets your need. If you want a lot of meat, don't buy a slow growing bird that lays a lot of eggs. Also, high brow breeds are often touted as such because they produce large quantities only under perfect conditions. They are also hard to manage if they come from factory perfect settings and are transferred to a more holistic natural way of living.
Again, breed is more important for quantity, management is more important for quality. Find a nice balance that does what you want it to do.
Coming up next. A trip to the permaculture paradise that is Quixaya.
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