welcome humble loopers!

This is the place to share info, make declarations, post soliloquies, questions and pictures; anything related to our exciting nutrient-looping project, Humble Pile L.A. Everyone should have received an email or phone call at this point, and we are getting into the beginning stages of this unprecedented (in our city) experiment! Woo! Post your experiences here.

an aeration query

Hey Humble Pilers,

I'm trying to solve a possible problem with the humble pile drum and I'd like your thoughts on the subject. If I were doing this on my own, I'd probably not have a bottom on the composter and I'd also have lots of air holes on the sides, that way I'd get both worms and oxygen into the pile (as per Jenkins and my non-humble food/chicken poop compost pile). I realize this would make it impossible to move. I've thought about placing a 4" drainage pipe with holes in it in the drum to bring in air as an alternative. Any thoughts? I noticed the guy on your website has a strange turning thingy that he uses (sells?) to get air in without having holes in the drum, but I'm a little skeptical.

I'll post a blog entry soon with pictures.

Best,
Erik K.

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sean has been filling his drum for awhile. what do you say to this?

erik, i'm with you about the bottomless bin idea. and clear on the need for air.

my impression, however, is that one builds the compost with enough roughage that air continues in.

but yes. that guy in arizona rotates his. hm. testhole has discussed this idea.

and...this:
we can and will drill air holes after the drums have reached their final resting spot. if they fill quickly and are transported away and aerated, that could be a clear answer.
since i'm interested in experiments that could or might lead to actual municipal applications i'm interested in solutions that would keep the drum a discrete, clean and moveable object?

you're supposed to put quite a lot of straw on the bottom of the drum as an organic "sponge" by the way. i failed to mention that at drop off.

best,
hd


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Hey all,


Sean here, to weigh in. The issue of compost aeration is a vital one, of course, the difference between a loamy result and a possible foul slurry, at least as far as barrel-composting is concerned. Oxygen must be introduced. But I'll echo Harry's mention of experimental large-scale: it all depends on whether or not you'd like to keep your barrel, or let us take it for our project's purposes. Everyone is perfectly welcome to keep their barrel, but we'd like to encourage you all to give 'em up, preferably full, and not perforated, for transport purposes. We'll do the oxy introduction later. My own barrel is currently in the seasoning stage, it's been there for about three months. It's now cooled off a lot and the volume's dropped by about 1/4. I'm about to introduce some more air by some means, perhaps a broomstick, although those fancy compost screws are neat-looking. No holes yet.

genesis

it was stumbling on this webpage about humanure composting that gave us the idea we could do this project. introducing: david omick, composter extraordinaire.

here is another page of his, more specifically about his composting (waterless) toilets.

revolutionary poop from Oregon

"We know a human made this turd, whereas we don't know if that was a campfire."



The items pictured above are coprolites, or fossilized shit, found in desert caves in the Paisley 5 Mile Ridge in South-central Oregon. Coprolites are part of a larger group of animal remains called ichnotaxa, including also gastroliths, regurgitaliths, nests, cocoons and pupal cases. One of these has maybe finally laid to rest the much-challenged date of first human colonization of North America, or the "Clovis-first" theory. The Clovis date (based on a particular kind of stone tool found in the '30s in Clovis, New Mexico and subsequently elsewhere), which has been challenged before, is now most strongly threatened by the hard evidence of ancient turds. After a new DNA extraction technique found unmistakable human DNA in samples from the Paisley coprolites (as well as certain genetic markers found only in Native American populations), the archaeologist whose students found them, Dennis Jenkins from the University of Oregon, sent samples to two different labs for radio carbon dating, and the results were identical: the excretion moment of these turds was 14,300 years ago, making them the oldest remains-based evidence of modern humans ever found in North America.

I emailed Dr. Jenkins, because I was concerned about the proximity of the shit to possible food-prep areas. He wrote back to say that feces were usually deposited in certain areas of a cave, such as cracks, pits, etc., or just outside. These were caches for later use in case of emergency, since many seeds would pass through the digestive tracts of the cave-dwellers un-digested. These could be recovered, cleaned and reconsumed. He also mentioned that the Seri indians of Sonora, Mexico refer to this practice as the second harvest.

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