So last night I headed out to the Farm after work and picked up some small square straw bales on the way out. I built a box that was 2 bales high and 2 bales long by 1 bale wide over an area that we scraped a little with the bob cat. I then laid out a 4 inch bottom of straw books (the sections that show easy when you takes the twine of the bale.

My dad brought over 3 bucket loads of grass clippings from newly fresh to a few months old. Mom used the weed eater to clear the surrounding area and the filmed part of the pile build and took some pictures.

On top of the bottom straw layer I dumped about 8 buckets (roughly 1/3 of the total) and then added grass clippings on top of that. The grass clippings were about 4-5 inches. I then put more straw books but not as compact as the bottom layer and put 10 buckets worth of humanure over that. Again I added grass clippings and straw with the last 8 buckets being dumped on that. The pile was then topped with the rest of the grass clippings (6-8 inches). After each bucket dump I threw a little grass and sawdust in the bucket.

At the end I dumped all the sawdust/grass that was in the buckets on top of the pile and wash each bucket out with an ecological soap water that I had in the tub my parents had just replaced out of the house. I poured the soap mixture from bucket to bucket for about 5-6 buckets while i scrubbed with an old toilet brush. I then would dump the grey water on the pile and turn the bucket upside down. It worked quite well and i used about 3x5 gal pails worth of clean soapy water.

I then added one more layer of straw books over the top of the pile bringing it to about 4.5' in height. I will post pictures and possibly vid soon.

The one thing I learned is I need to have better instructions for the people using the toilets at the festival. They need to use more sawdust in what I would guess where the pee only buckets as when I opened the lid on about 5 of them, the fluid content was 4:1 the solid mass leaving a very strong ammonia smell that chased my mom away from her 20 feet back filming position. I wore one of those small white respirator masks but it even overpowered that a couple times.

In a perfect scenario these buckets would be dumped onsite daily to a compost pile but since I did not have that option, the buckets stayed sealed starting friday night, going through sat and sun to monday night when i opened them.

I will update in a month when I get a thermometer to gauge temp. in the pile.