Composting human waste

We have begun to get the homestead ready for by winter collecting wood, removing a/c units and general cleaning. One of the items on that list is to empty out one of the compost bins. I wrote about this before but it's been a couple years now, we compost our toilet waste. We have a bucket composting system based off the Humanure website Joe Jenkins promotes. http://humanurehandbook.com. What this means is that our toilet is a bucket that after each use we cover the waste with saw dust that we get from the local lumbar yard. A trailer full of saw dust lasts us about 9 months. When the bucket is full it is my husband's chore to empty it unto the compost pile. Speaking of chores, he went out of town for a week so his chores became my chores. I do not care for this chore and I am fine washing dishes and doing laundry so I do not have to do this chore.

The compost bin is made from old pallets. Everytime a bucket is dumped on it, it is covered with straw. We compost our kitchen scraps here too. During the summer the pile runs about 140 degrees. This is pretty hot compared to standard yard compost piles. The pile stays about 90 degrees until February or when the pile gets above the height of the pallet walls, then there is too much wind and it freezes.

This was our first pile so it has been composting for two years now. This is longer than your standard yard compost pile but it needs the longer time to break down and harmful bacteria. The only thing that has not broken down are these stupid baby wipes my son uses and egg shells.  It looks just like regular soil. My husband forced me to smell it even though I got grossed out. What do you know, it smells like soil and has zero bad odor at all. This pile is being spread out around our fruit trees. Human waste compost is not suitable for a vegetable garden. It is great for shrubs, trees and landscaping compost. 

Behind the compost bins my husband put together a bucket washing station, he used an old wire crib mattress as the bucket drying station and built a rickety straw bale storage area. We also store the wood chips back here. We fill a small garbage can with the saw dust and keep it in the bathroom near the toilet.  In the spring and fall the compost bins are covered in snakes because it is so warm. I went to dump our kitchen compost bin on the pile and saw all these old snakes skins and a snake slithering by. I screamed and threw the bucket and have not gone back all summer.

The main level is almost complete. I painted the kitchen wall where my husband's kombucha operation exploded and stained the walls. Then my husband finally got around to putting up the trim around the bathroom door, front door and window. He did not use traditional trim but some super cheap trim. At first I thought it was going to be dumb but now that its up I really it, sort of gives it a rustic look that not every house has.

It's bow hunting season right now. My buddy Charlie and my girlfriend Julie got deer with their bows. They saved me bag of fat off the deer. I spent three days rendering it down. Towards the end it really started to smell so I made my husband dump it int he woods. The dumb pug of mine found it and has been out there eating it. I have four jars of deer fat now that  I will be turning into some deer soap for the holidays. I will also be giving them some deer fat soap so they can not only eat the deer they kill but bath in the fat. Hahahahaha!