Here are a couple new flowers we're trying out and so far I think I like them both. The first is 'persian carpet' a very small headed zinnia that is a total pain to cut but really makes a mixed bouquet. Great for fall. The next is also great for fall, tithonia 'torch', also know as Mexican sunflower. You have to cut all of it's leaves off or it won't hydrate properly, but it seems promising. The stems feel like satin so when I cut it I imagine going to sleep. Pretty much all of my daydreams these days consist of sleeping. Not so much satin, but sleeping.
But it is really fun to cut with the stems feeling so soft, and the plants are huge. They must be six feet tall, maybe taller.
Clover has been singing this
song all week, getting right in your face and then running off. She smells so bad right now. Her official nickname is 'stinker'.
That's right everyone, it's true; it is the best toilet around. And it's a composting toilet to boot. I heard on Living on Earth a couple podcasts ago that in Sweden they call it the 'utedass' or dry compost toilet and it sounds like everyone over there has one. Maybe soon enough more people will have them here in the states. This is Gerard, the architect behind this beauty of a building. He took apart an old meat curing salt shed we had on the property and used that wood for all of the siding and the awesome dutch doors (we're going to have some dutch doors in our house proper, love them).
Because of the old recycled wood the little shack has a great feel to it. In the first picture the plexiglass hasn't been put on, but it's there now and works to heat the composting pile of s*#$. Pretty cool huh? The urine is diverted outside via the pvc pipe. The black pipe supposedly works like a vacuum and draws out the odors. We use leaf mulch and wood ash to cover what we leave behind. This has been a great addition to the farm. What next you ask? Solar powered irrigation? solar power for the house?? a wetland water run-off purification system? what else? the sky is the limit.
