A compost toilet works, and is in effect another source of --- energy . For Burning or planting.
They work. Plus you would not believe how many snakes _ copperheads for instance that are out at night and doing their thing.
Er.
Ahem.
Let me tell you the tale of The Great White Hunter And The Long Drop.
In Southern Africa, if you dig a deep hole and erect a suitable structure above it for use as a toilet, it's known as a Long Drop. They're common around hunting camps - dig your hole, put a wood crate on top with a suitably sized hole in it, build a thatch enclosure around it for privacy, and (if you wish) roof it with more thatch to keep (most of) the rain out.
So far, so good. I want you to get the picture. Great White Hunter wakes up at dawn (about 6-ish), groggy, sleep in his eyes, and more than a little hung-over from the previous night's "conversation" (he was young then). He heads for the Long Drop to void his bladder.
Upon entering the Long Drop, he opens his shorts, takes out the necessary plumbing equipment, and is about to do the deed when he hears a hiss and a rustle from down the hole. He performs an Olympic-worthy leap backward, out of the structure, hurriedly stuffing the plumbing equipment back into his shorts, and heads for his tent to equip himself for the fray.
Now, it's a well-known phenomenon that many snakes like Long Drop holes. They're considerably warmer than the veld at night, and the contents of the holes makes them even warmer (fermentation, decomposition and all that). Since the snake apparently doesn't have a great sense of smell, the odiferous disadvantages of the Long Drop aren't a factor in its consideration. The result is that one has to check one's Long Drop very, very carefully before sitting down on it. Tourniquets are hard to apply in those portions of anatomy, and as for sucking out the poison . . . well, as a friend of the Great White Hunter put it once, "Chum, if you get bitten there, you're gonna
die!"
So, the GWH (in a combination of sleepy numbness and pee-delayed nervous tension) grabs his 12ga. shotgun and returns to the Long Drop. He points the gun down into the hole and cuts loose with both barrels of buckshot.
Unfortunately, the GWH, in his just-out-of-bed, hungover state, has failed to realize what two barrels of buckshot will do to the regular contents of the Long Drop, never mind the bloody snake. The contents of the hole duly levitate themselves upward and outward, splattering the entire enclosure - and the GWH - most liberally.
The GWH returns to his tent (strong men clearing a path for him) and spends the next hour bathing in the (approximately zero degree) stream, trying to disinfect, deodorize, and decontaminate himself. His hunting buddies, after sizing up the situation (from a respectable distance, compatible with the biological warfare restrictions of the Geneva Conventions) decide that the Long Drop, thatch, box and all, is unsalvageable, and set fire to it (with the aid of some kerosene) and burn it down, this being the only way to remove it in a sanitary manner. Many are their rude remarks about the destruction wrought on their only civilized amenity by the GWH.
The snake? Oh, no trace at all - it probably left in a hurry while the GWH was getting his shotgun.
As to who the GWH was? No comment. He pleads the 5th!
