Poop Is Good

One of the most common questions we get is about utilities. Water, electricity and sewage. Since some of you may be visiting this summer, we felt it wise to come clean, as it were, about the toilet situation.

Dig it: we compost the poop.

‘Hmm. Well, that makes me feel a bit squeamish… but tell me more.’

Alright, then. Here’s the scoop on the poop.

Once you’ve finished eating and digesting your food around these parts, you head on down to the outdoor facility. This would be your view:

But instead of a water closet type apparatus that leads to a septic tank or an outhouse joint that dumps into a nasty hole, you do your business in a bucket.

‘Yeah. There’s that squeamish feeling again.’

Easy. Eeeaassy. Check out the brochure.

The Outlander

The Outlander is an on-the-fly prototype built from lumber pile scraps. Its rugged good looks and folksy style suited the ruins of a manzanita bush perfectly but when we upgraded to an oak tree location it was time to hit the drawing board again.

The Challenger

Designed with the long haul in mind, the Challenger is built to withstand the cold ass conditions you'll be getting your ass cold in. Not to mention withstanding your ass. Still using leftover wood when possible and maybe you recognize the seat, this backwoods charmer was built to endure.

Now, I know some of you have some questions. Let’s assume they are frequent and call them:

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Crap FAQ's

Bucket? What the fuck are you talking about, man? It’s like this, friend. You poop in the bucket. You wipe your ass, or at least we all really hope you do. Then you put a couple cups worth of sawdust on top, close up shop and head back to the party.

Yes. But why? Because we don’t want our poop to get in our water table. Septic tanks allow this and so do outhouses. Our water up here is pristine. Pristine, baby. We aim to keep it that way.

Is it hygienic? Assuming that you resist the urge to plunge your hand into the toilet much like I hope you resist the urge to do so at home… yes. Yes, it’s hygienic.

Where do you dump my ex-dinners?

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Right here. Poop is mixed in with food scraps and layered with straw to eliminate the smell. Please note the use of the word ‘eliminate’. I did not use the word ‘minimize’.

What are you going to use the compost on? Well, if we do a proper job of it we’ll use it in the garden. If we don’t do a proper job, we’ll use it on non-comestibles. Ornamentals and the like. We’ll send a sample to a lab to make sure before we make a decision.

Why does this smell so… hippy? Because hippies smell like shit. Seriously, though, if you want to learn, check this out. It’s the shit!

But Why?

Some have not heard the tale. Please. Relax. I’ll tell it again.

In ‘05 we were coming back from a weekend up on the Mendocino coast and we decided to take Skaggs Springs Road back to the 101. I’d never driven it before. It runs along the very top of Sonoma County into Healdsburg.

The drive is nothing but curves the whole way, through miles of seemingly undeveloped hills and forest. I couldn’t help but wonder aloud who the hell owned it all. The public? Right. Land baron? Methinks.

Then we came across a ten acre property on the Gualala River listed for sale at $30k.

Say what?

This is where the story gets fuzzy. My theory is that we called the number as soon as humanly possible and the somewhat confused person who answered the phone directed us to the realtor in charge of said property. But it was the wrong realtor. By about a hundred miles.

This realtor, being savvy, didn’t miss a beat and told us that although he knew nothing of the property in question, he had a parcel just about to be posted for sale and would we be interested? Why, certainly we were.

So, nutshell, we bought the very first place we looked at, a place that we came upon entirely by accident, twice removed.

Yes. But why?

Because we could afford it.

The property has a road going directly through it that provides several landowners egress to their holdings. This is probably somewhat undesirable to most people. There are very few trees and last but not least, we’re on a ridge so wind can sometimes be a bit fierce.

Counterbalancing these smallish downsides is the fact that we are bordered by three very large ranches and the National Forest. There are some smaller neighbors but so far, so good. Minor problems include one neighbor who is apparently unaware that a piece of his trailer blew off in a winter storm and is now sitting on our property.

Is it worth it?




You tell me.

Oh, and the ten acre parcel on the Gualala River? There was no egress through the neighboring parcels and you weren’t allowed to build a bridge over the river from Skaggs Springs Road. The realtor who finally enlightened us said it would be good for someone who wanted to hunt. Apparently after swimming across the river with a gun.

An Introduction

For those of you who were not formally notified, Ya and I have relocated to our property in Mendocino County for the summer to build our religious zealot nudist colony, political unrest compound and used shotgun shell repository.

Here you will find posts of our trials and tribulations with nifty photos and asides to keep you delighted, appalled and making plans to visit. Ya is the acting mayor; I am the sheriff. So keep your nose clean.

Google Earth aficionados need only request a pushpin and one will be sent to you. Others will need to know that we are in the northeast quadrant of the county, one mile west, give or take a few 'No Trespassing' signs, of the Mendocino National Forest. Painstakingly created directions to our place are under construction even now.

Slope Oak looks down on the town of Covelo from a median height of 4,000 feet. (More on Covelo later.) For those of you who are robots, here are some GPS shots of our arbitrary ownership as determined by 'lines' and 'payments'. Please note that the color scheme is not accurate.

For the record, I resent the term 'blog'. You will please refer to this as a 'wournal'.